Pale Dawn
by Maroon Thief
Summary: Taylor Hebert is pulled into the Hunter's Dream. The Hunter's Dream connects to Yharnam, a mad and desolate city overridden by a beastly plague. There exists many madmen, questions without answers, and huge beasts that woefully outclass Taylor in size, strength, speed, and sometimes cunning. This time the night of the hunt is long, Good Hunter. May we survive to see the Pale Dawn.
1. 1 Corruption 1

So many stars. The universe so vast.

_We're s- so very small, in the end._

The first bullet hit me from behind, where my mask offered no coverage, and I slowly toppled. The second hit me before I could fall, before there could be any pain.

A dark mist welcomed me. What I could see split apart in white particles.

I heard, "_That's not-_"

~Drip~

Time passed. There were so many sensations. A clarity in my mind unlike anything I knew from before. There were colours before me but there wasn't any sense to them. What I was lying on wasn't flat, it dug into my shoulder and back.

The relief in my throat faded at some point. I knew that but couldn't pin where.

Relief. I tried to remember what from.

There was a point in the colours that drew my attention. I tried to recall what I knew of the thoughts passing through my head.

…

It was hard to pin where things started and ended. I let more time pass.

_Water._

It came to me suddenly. That's what the relief was from. My hand moved to my face and made to remove my mask, only to miss. I hit my shoulder instead. I corrected and moved my arm across my face, succeeding in dragging my forearm across my cheek and nose.

I noted a change in the colours I saw and made the first connection. That was my arm.

My arm had hit my face. I wasn't wearing a mask.

Things were connecting now. Memories making sense. I tried to recall _something_ but my mind was just like the colours once I drifted too far from where I was.

I realised I had fallen forward, but was lying on my back.

I wasn't on an incline, I hadn't rolled.

Had someone moved me here?

Who?

Why would they do that?

Where even was here?

The circle was attracting my attention. It distracted me.

_No._ It was the moon. Larger than I remembered it. _I remember the moon._

Why wasn't I wearing a mask? If it had been removed, what else had been taken from me?

_My knife._ It wasn't in my hand. I moved it, as if drunk and slapped against my thigh. My _bare_ thigh.

It was gone.

I felt naked in more ways than one.

Barring the actual nudity and the fact that I was disarmed, there weren't any bugs. It felt like a new sensation.

_No._ A voice whispered. Young. Female. I hadn't heard that voice in years. _It feels like before._

Before? Before what?

I reached back and was swept away by a flow of memory.

"_Was it worth it?"_

The moon had details.

The answer should have been yes...

I recognised details in the moon. Darker patches where asteroids had struck the surface hard enough to leave a crater that was visible from the celestial body next door.

There were stars around the moon. Obscuring them in places were clouds. Thin, wispy things that reflected the light and made the view from a thing of beauty into something otherworldly. I let my head turn to the side. It didn't want to obey at first, but slowly it started to shift. My perspective swam as I turned and I stopped, willing the colours to return to something I could recognise.

… But somewhere along the way it became no.

I saw… trees.

Incredibly tall trees. Growing from a ground I couldn't see all the way into the heavens where they disappeared.

I kept turning until my head was sideways on the ground, settled in a nook in the surface I was lying on.

I saw… a gravestone.

Mine? Probably. Wait. There were more behind it. I took the time and counted five from my current perspective. I couldn't see what was behind them. There were probably more that I couldn't see. There was writing on the gravestone as well.

_Writing._

I couldn't read it, which pinged pain that I immediately tried homing in on.

_Nothing._ My mind drifted. What had I been looking for?

I tried sitting up and succeeded in groaning. It was the first thing I heard, making me realise just how quiet things were. I rolled over and pushed with my hand. I realised the floor I was on was cobblestone. Old fashioned. I hadn't really encountered any cobblestone in-...

_Push up._ I told myself. A first conscious thought. A direction to travel. Did that fit? I pushed up. I pulled my legs forward when I thought there was space. Moments later my arm failed me and I collapsed on my bare knees, but I stayed upright.

I looked up. The colours swam before they stilled.

A house. That's what I saw. A staircase lead up to it. The colours settled a little more. There was a figure by the foot of the staircase. It was… on a ledge. Sitting. A person? I parsed that quickly. I had lost perspective of persons towards the end.

_End of what?_ My head dropped as I redirected the energy to a mental search. I found nothing. Just a bright impression.

It made something click. I had done something. No, become something. I didn't recall what. Now I was here.

My body. That's what clicked. I could feel it again. Understand what the parts were meant for and how they moved. There wasn't any strength in them, which was the problem. I had been beaten and exhausted. One arm ended in a hand while the other stopped short. I flopped them in front of my and saw the difference.

Movement in my peripheral distracted me. I looked and saw tiny people. The colours focused and I saw the details. They had open mouths, all of them, stuck in the same parched looking expression. Their jaws hanging and unmoving. They either had sunken holes where their eyes would be, or blind white orbs that seemed about to fall out. The most off setting thing was how pale they were. Scratch that, it was how they were reaching for me.

I tried to count them, but lost the order. I had counted before, where had it gone?

I refocused on the little people. They were just out of arm's reach. Behind them I could see more tiny people reaching out of the staircase. I looked back at the group in front of me, they were cut off at the waist, a dark fog permeating the ground around them.

Many, many tiny breakers then.

_Breakers._

Where had that come from?

The tiny people were still reaching for me. They were silent, while I was loud. Moving had elevated my heart rate, which I could still feel pounding around my skull, hear it in my ears. Each breath was a laboured thing. It's what filled the air while I watched the tiny people reach endlessly towards me, but never moving.

There was something in between them. I couldn't make it out.

I reached forward with my hand and pulled myself forward. It was slow. It was painful. I reached the little people.

As I approached, they lifted the thing between them.

It was a hat. It was shaped in a triangle, with the two sides that were meant to face forward folded back and sweeping up in the back. The back end of the hat was _really_ frayed.

They offered it to me.

I reached and fell over. I had to pull myself back to a kneeling position.

The little people were holding it further towards me. I couldn't tell anything from their faces. I wasn't sure I could tell anything from any face.

Again, I tried to take the hat and dropped it immediately. My grip wasn't good. The little people picked it up and offered the hat again.

I tried again and put more effort into holding the hat. With my limbs still not responding properly, I pushed my arm up with great effort and approximated the best position to release my hand.

The hat toppled off to the side.

All I had done and I couldn't even put on a hat.

I tried again. It took a while, but I succeeded this time.

If the little people were happy with me taking the hat, they didn't stick around to show it. As soon as I had the hat on they pulled back into the ground and disappeared. Then they rose again with something else in their many grasps.

I pulled it towards me. The little people let go as soon as I had a hold of it, weak as my grip was.

It was clothes. A gray shirt, a leather vest, and a long grey jacket with a short black cape to go over it.

I looked at the little people and they looked back.

They could have given me the shirt first.

~Drip~

Putting clothes on took a long time, but it helped me find my coordination. Moving no longer required conscious effort _most_ of the time, and I had found enough balance that I could stand with the assistance of a nearby gravestone.

When I had put on clothes I had been given, another set of garments had been delivered. Trousers, socks, and boots. That was where I had really needed to learn to stand. As soon as the last boot was strapped on the little people had delivered gloves, which I pocketed instead of wearing.

I felt better with the cape on. Was it familiar territory?

One sleeve dangled uselessly. I didn't bother trying to tie a knot in it.

A final group of little people delivered me glasses. I accepted the delicate things and put them on. I looked up again, the moon was even more beautiful now.

There were two more groups of the little people further away, near the motionless figure. I took my first steps tentatively, and soon found a rhythm. My coordination hadn't really been taken away, just my strength. There were a few scares where I nearly fell over, but I made it to the figure and leaned against the wall.

It was a similar figure to me, wearing very different clothes. It's garments were Victorian in design, as far as I could tell. That hadn't been the kind of fashion I was interested in. What was I interested in? I'd never been one to pay much attention to how I dressed...

The doll.

It was a doll. That's why it wasn't moving. It looked well made and beautiful, which gave it many creepy points in my book. It's face stared up into the sky, expression blank and unblinking. There was a lit lantern next to it. Whoever lit it was nowhere to be found.

I turned my attention to the little people.

The nearest bunch had three things for me. I reached for the one in the middle and they pushed the handle towards me. I gripped it. As I pulled it away, the little people started descending, making me pause. They did too. If I took this now, would the other two things be taken away? They had been taking the other things with them as I tugged on this one.

I looked closer. The one on the left looked like the handle for a cane. The one on the right looked like the handle for an axe. I couldn't tell what the handle I was holding as for, but I could tell it had a blade.

An axe would be too unwieldy for me. A cane wouldn't do much in a fight. This seemed to be the smallest blade available, even if it was a little too large for my taste going by the look of it. I had lost my knife, it would have to do.

I pulled the weapon out and nearly dropped the thing when the little people stopped supporting it. It was a mix between a cleaver and a saw attached to a handle. There was no elegance to it, it had clearly been made to saw through whatever was in the way, be it flesh or bone. I gave it an experimental swing and was taken off guard when it suddenly extended, a hinge at the end of the handle snapping out and extending the weapon. I stumbled backwards into the doll.

There had been a memory near the surface there. It was gone now.

When I had swung the saw… cleaver… thing, I had pulled a trigger that I hadn't realised was there. Pressing it again made the weapon move back into its original shape. This would be the one I was more comfortable using, not having the strength to leverage something like that even...

I was staring at the moon again.

I pushed myself back to my feet and attached the saw cleaver to my belt. The clothes had clearly been made with that kind of functionality in mind. By who and for what purpose were questions that were ignored in favour of dwelling on why failing to read had hurt.

I went over to the final group of little people. Two things this time. Handles. Of guns.

I went for the smaller piece and inspected it before attaching it to my belt. They hadn't delivered it with any ammo, meaning it was useless. I wasn't going to be able to use both weapons at the same time anyway. It was an impossibility in my current condition.

It would stay that way too.

Another gathering of little people appeared. They presented me with a bell before retreating under the floor.

I looked around but didn't spy any more little people, so I directed my attention to the house. Now that my thoughts were somewhat in order I wanted to go inside and find someone, anyone. Try talking. Try figuring something out. There was trepidation in the urge to do it, but everything in me was saying that there was purpose to… I couldn't say what.

Talking would help.

I just needed to find someone to talk _to_.

The doors were closed. I was too weak to turn the handle. That felt right, somehow. It justified my frustration.

I staggered down the stairs and took some time to take in my surroundings. There were many, many more gravestones than the ones I had seen before. There were several stylised gravestones leading up the side of the staircase. There was an empty birdbath in the shadow of the house, as well as another path leading to the side of the building. Now that I took a moment to look at it, I realised that the house was quite small. There wouldn't be room for anything more than a kitchen and bedroom in there, maybe a bathroom if it was just a shower. Other than that I was standing in a garden.

A very macabre garden made by someone with a fetish for gravestones, it seemed.

Movement caught my eye. A little person had appeared at the foot of one of the larger gravestones. I took a moment to wait and see if anything else happened. When nothing did I staggered towards the little person and knelt in front of him.

"_What do you want?_" I attempted to say.

"Wd- -o -tn?" Is what came out.

The little person didn't reply. I wasn't sure he could. He was reaching for me like all the others had. He was yearning for something. Me? Possibly. I couldn't tell for the life of me what was so good about me.

I moved my hand towards the little one. He reached towards my hand as it approached. I let him reach my hand and he took a soft hold on it. His touch was so light that I could have forced my hand away if I wanted to. After a moment I felt a pull.

It wasn't the little one. It was like my body was attempting to scatter itself. It was something I had felt before with certain teleporters. I was attempting to pin down that thought when the effect tore apart what I had gathered of my mind.

~Drip~

I woke and sat up.

Bugs. I could feel bugs. They were just as numerous as I… remembered.

There were… flies… ants... beetles, small ones… cockroaches… and… no… there weren't any spiders. They felt far away, like my awareness had been shrouded, but I knew they were close. Only walls away. My range was… short.

I pulled them towards me regardless.

I looked at my hands- hand. That part hadn't been a dream. Now I was lying on a bed somewhere. I looked around, taking it in. I was in a clinic, but none that I'd ever been in before. This one was dark and the equipment was unrecognisable. Books were stacked carelessly everywhere. I did recognize an IV drip though, it was injected into my arm. It would stop me from moving too far, so I started removing it.

It was in the arm that still had a hand, so I had to fumble with my teeth and stump to get it out. I succeeded with a spurt of blood. Since I was familiar with treating injuries I put pressure on the bleeding area while looking for bandages, then realised that the blood had come from the needle, not my arm. The blood had been going in me. I temporarily took the pressure off to find there wasn't any blood flowing from my arm. There wasn't even any indication a needle had just been there.

Blood continued flowing from the drip and my stomach growled.

That's right, I had been hungry. My thirst had been sated but I couldn't recall how long it had been since I ate. Two days? Three? More? I needed to move.

I learned I was actually on an operating table by falling off of it when I swung my legs around to stand. I rubbed the sore spots and awkwardly got to my feet, using the operating table as leverage. I nearly fell again when my grip slipped on some paper, inadvertently pulling it off the table.

I picked it up. It had written on it, "_Seek Paleblood to transcend the hunt._"


	2. 1 Corruption 2

The fact that I could read took a moment to parse. When it did, I felt relief flow from my shoulders to the rest of my body. I had been holding out… hope? I didn't want to consider a life without reading. It was… important, that I could read.

It would be a reminder. I put the paper in my pocket and looked around.

There were two doors out of this room. The first one I tried was locked. I tried the second one hoping that the rule of three would kick in, and was pleasantly surprised when it did. The staircase through the door was steeper than the one by the house, so I took my time with it. I passed the destroyed and empty room at the bottom before the first bugs reached me.

They were cockroaches, each about three inches long and varying in exact length. Their antennae were pointed, rather than feeling. It felt strange looking at them, but it was definitely a cockroach. I made one climb up my leg and come to a stop on the back of my hand. I looked more closely at it. There seemed to be… fur coming out of the gaps in its carapace.

I sent the cockroaches out, using the information I got from them to start mapping the room before me while I focused on the flies.

I made one fly in front of me and hover while I inspected it. Actually looking at it was tough, since the fly's wings meant it wasn't suiting for hovering and the constant drift it ended up doing to approximate hovering made the colours swim again. But I got a good look after a bit.

The fly was a cancer ridden thing. There were so many tumours and growths that I could see from a glance that the fly had swollen to twice its normal size. I could feel strength within the fly, strength that eclipsed what I recalled from-

Something snapped, demanding my attention. It sounded like a bone.

There was something moving in the room just ahead. It was a dark shape hunched over between two more empty operating tables. There were more sounds, like something was eating another something. My hand went for the saw cleaver. I would have pulled the gun if there were any bullets. When I loosened it from my belt I fumbled, dropping the weapon.

I focused on picking up the weapon while I watched the thing with my bugs. It came into focus, and I was immediately reminded of…

It wasn't nearly as scary.

It was a creature that kind of looked like a wolf, but messier and far larger. A _beast_. From what I could see it was larger than me. It's limbs were long and it held its body low to the ground. It turned in my direction, but I didn't have an angle on it's eyes with my bugs.

I got a good grip on the saw cleaver and looked with my eyes. Glowing yellow orbs glistened at me through the dimly lit room.

_I killed you._

It charged, crossed the distance in a second and slashed at me with a claw. My stump arm and torso were torn apart as four scratch marks appeared in them. Blood sprayed out as I stood there, willing myself to move.

The bugs were more responsive than my body. The flies darted into the beast's eyes, buying me seconds as it clawed at its own eyes with its oversized and overly sharp claws. I pushed to move, felt pain erupt where I had been slashed, _then_ started running.

I didn't even consider fighting back. I couldn't wield the saw cleaver correctly. Couldn't hit with the strength I needed to. Couldn't even aim properly.

When I ordered my bugs to attack I stopped getting navigational information from my cockroaches. I ran into an operating table and stumbled. That was all the beast needed to roar its frustration and pursue me into a corner. I wasn't facing it, but there was nothing I could do to dodge its next swipe.

I cried out as the pain registered. It took me to the floor.

The beast didn't wait. It bit at me, tearing my remaining hand to shreds.

It clawed at me again.

My guts spilled.

Again. My blood spattered.

I don't know when I died.

Dark mist welcomed me.

~Drip~

When I stopped screaming, I was looking at the moon again. I let time pass. Eventually I stopped hyperventilating.

I sat up to find I was back at the house, in the garden of tombstones. Nothing had changed, but everything was different. I wasn't as disoriented this time, I could feel myself beginning to get a grip on the situation.

I had died. Then come here.

Then I died and came here again.

I wasn't being allowed to rest. Of course I wasn't.

What did I need to do? The question hung in my mind, unanswered. There was something pulling at that question. It was an abstract thing, so it didn't make sense.

Then what could I do? I could explore this place, but there wasn't much left to explore. All that was left was a small part of the garden to the left of the house, and a larger garden at the other end of the path leading to the house. The world dropped into nothingness beyond that.

I considered the beast. I had reacted to its eyes, that had stopped me from reacting quickly. _Why?_

_A bright impression._

There was more to that, but the information wasn't surrendering itself.

I put the distraction on the backburner and thought about the beast. If I distracted it using my bugs I could probably get past it. I just needed to gather enough bugs. If I bit it with enough bugs, it would eventually lose the will to fight.

That was if I could even return there, the little one wasn't in the gravestone anymore. As if responding to my thoughts, a grey mist spilled from the foot of the gravestone and a little one climbed halfway out. It may have been the same one. I couldn't tell with them.

I stood slowly and moved over. The little one reached for me and I let it grab hold of my finger. Soon, I was being pulled again.

~Drip~

_My range is short._ The realisation hit me more than I thought it would. It hit me harder than dying had. It wasn't even the first time I had followed that line of though, this was it hitting home. I chalked that one up to whatever was scattering my mind.

I could only sense bugs in the surrounding buildings. There was some variety in the bugs I could sense and my control over them was unquestionable, but the fact that I could only reach a building or two felt incredibly constricting. I had thought my range was farther reaching than that. My swarm wasn't going to as large as I thought it would be.

No matter, I would work with it.

I was sitting in the room with the lamp, one wall separating me from the beast that had killed me in seconds. While I was active, I made sure that I didn't move at all. I didn't want to make a noise and attract the beast's attention. It was happy to eat whatever had spilled that horrendously large blood spatter around it while I gathered the swarm around it.

After fifteen minutes I had gathered every bug in my range and there weren't any more bugs coming in. It was time to move.

The beast reacted at the last possible moment. Before the first of my bugs that I trusted to do any damage made it to the beast it jumped away, clearing an impressive distance in a single movement.

That just took it to more bugs. It had let me surround it, there was nowhere it could go. My cockroaches and beetles started climbing up its limbs while flies flew at its eyes and nose. The beast thrashed, killing a dozen bugs with every move. I wasn't worried, I already had cockroaches biting at places it couldn't easily reach.

It screeched, eliciting panic in the bugs that was ignored. I was unphased. That wouldn't work on me.

But I was beginning to worry that my bugs wouldn't work on _it_.

My swarm had already been reduced to a fifth of its size. Dozens of bugs being turned to splatters of blood with each passing second. My cockroaches were drawing blood, but the beast wasn't slowing down. I flew flies into the beast's nose, ears, and mouth, even had bugs biting all of them, and it just didn't seem to care.

Even someone invulnerable couldn't afford to ignore something like that.

The bugs inside vanished from my senses. It was time to consider something else.

My objective was really just to get past this thing. I knew there was another room beyond and after that was outside. I didn't know much of the layout outside the building, my range didn't cover it. I could sense dozens of feet away and I felt claustrophobic.

My mind was wandering again.

I needed to make it outside, that was it. All I needed to do was get out of this place, I could figure things out from there. The problem was that the beast had reduced my swarm by another fifth now and it had seemed to become stronger for it. It dashed across the room, dragging its claws along the floor, ripping up splinters and killing more bugs.

Half of my swarm, now.

It moved around so damn much. It's route was nigh unpredictable. My chances were fading, I needed to move. I waited until the beast launched itself to the side of the room farther from me and ran to cover around behind a corner. It didn't seem like the beast had noticed me yet.

Next I pulled some bugs away from my dwindling swarm and had them gather near where I had come from. They flapped their wings noisily and started buzzing with a thought. The reaction was near instantaneous. The beast practically flew past me, now with a purple light in its eye leaving a trail that I ignored as I started legging it to the exit.

I had the bugs start attacking the beast again, engaging in a melee that was quickly turning in the beast's favour. It swiped at my swarm once, twice, but not a third time.

I dodged to the side as the beast lunged at where I was. It collided with an operating table and knocked it into the wall. I tried to get my bearings, but I dodged into the blood spatter the beast had been eating from. There was something slippery there that I slipped on, and I hit my head on the way down.

I felt my face with my hand and found my glasses were lopsided, so I fixed them. I felt hot breath on my face before I could recognise what I was looking at. The beast was right in front of me, it's eyes, once gold or yellow, were now exuding a purple mist that highlighted the animal expression on the thing's face. It's fur was dark and matted. Matted with something that was a shade lighter than it's black or dark brown fur.

It was big up close. This was the first time I'd seen it so close. Apart from its breath, things were quiet. It had killed my swarm. Effectively killed the whole thing with its claws and strength.

That was new. Normally my enemies cheated at killing my minions.

Maybe that was why it had missed a few. I still had one or more cockroaches and bugs in each of its armpits, biting with abandon. The beast didn't care. It was focused on me. It's bloody maw was inches from my face, blood dripping from individual teeth, and its tongue flopping uselessly. It was slowly approaching. The colossal stature of the beast looming from behind its head.

It sniffed. I felt behind me for somewhere to retreat to. There was something beneath me. A corpse. Human. My breath caught, but I didn't act scared even though I was. That was something I was good at. I held onto that.

But I fumbled as I lifted myself off of the corpse and the beast unleashed fury upon me.

Dark mist welcomed me.

~Drip~

I was trapped, I knew that.

There was a lot I didn't know, and there was a lot, but not as much, that I should know. I recognised that. What I had wasn't much, but I had that much figured out.

Instead of going to the little one again when I woke up, I actually explored the area around the house. The garden area behind the house was just a little circle of bush, but there was something interesting there. A stump that had the same misty effect where the little people appeared from. There were no little people though.

That being said, one of the little ones had decided to make their home in the birdbath in the shadow of the building. They pulled themselves out of the marble as I approached and reached for me like they all had so far. I put my hand forward, and they held on like the little one in the gravestone, but they didn't take me anywhere.

I felt almost guilty as I pulled my hand back. They had held onto it with a fascination I couldn't sympathise with, almost as if mine was the hand of god. I couldn't even swing a knife properly with it.

The lower garden was closed, a locked gate was in the way. What I could see through the gate was beautiful. I could imagine wanting to stride through the tall grass and lie down surrounded by the beautiful flowers, just spending time basking in the moon.

I wouldn't, though. I was a woman of action, I didn't feel like myself when nothing was happening. Even now, I could feel the agitation rising despite the fact that I was doing something. I was exploring, damnit.

I passed by each tombstone to make sure there wasn't an errant little one waiting to pull me away somewhere else. There wasn't. Then I returned to the one I knew would be there and let him grasp my hand. I was considering what might be a good thing to say to them when the pull took me from there.

~Drip~

I appeared in the room with the lamp. I had last time as well, but hadn't focused on that because I was intent on getting past the beast. Now, I was still gathering a swarm since the bug population had thankfully replenished while I was deceased, but I couldn't help wonder why I hadn't appeared in the clinic room I had first found myself in.

I looked up the stairs and saw they were closed. I hadn't closed them, maybe someone was home. The handle didn't move when I tugged on it, telling me someone was. Built into the door were several frosted panes of glass, but some of them were cracked and parts had fallen out. I knocked on a pane that seemed to still be in a good state and listened.

Someone approached, I could see them through the gaps. My heart soared.

"Are you.. out on the hunt?" The person tentatively asked. _She_. It was a woman. Her voice was… controlled was my best approximation.

_What?_ "-Tss." My mouth wasn't obeying me.

The woman seemed to take it as a yes. "Then I'm very sorry, but… I cannot open this door."

_No!_ My hand hit the door. It was lame, and didn't even register with the woman.

"I am Iosefka." The woman continued. _Iosefka._ I repeated in my head. It was a name, remembering a name was good. Did I know any names like that? Why did I feel like I was about to think something foreboding?

She kept going, "The patients here in my clinic must not be exposed to infection."

_I woke up here._ "K-g, yr- ahh." _You might know something._ "O- llnn… ghu tsshg-."

Damn my mouth. I had been talking before waking up here, why couldn't I talk now?

Iosefka wasn't heeding my ramblings. "I know that you hunt for us, for our town," _What town?_ "But I'm sorry."

She paused, fumbling with something from the other side of the door. "Please. This is all I can do." Iosefka extended her hand through a gap in the door. She was holding a vial of orange liquid. I didn't recognise it, but I was familiar with the smell that hung around it.

I stared at the thing. Why was she giving me blood?

"Take it." Iosefka told me. "It will assist you with your hunt."

_What hunt?_ "A-ts, yrd?" I shook my head in frustration and placed my palm face up underneath Iosefka's.

She dropped the vial of blood into my hand and withdrew. "Now, go. And good hunting."

I listened to the sounds of her walking away and watched as the white haired woman disappeared further into the clinic. I hit the door with my stump. It was pathetic.

What the hell was I supposed to do with this? What 'hunt' was she going on about? Why did Iosefka have a beast in her clinic and not even address it? I had so many goddamn questions, and I couldn't ask any of them because of whatever was wrong with me.

I hit the door again, using my hand this time. The knocks were much more aggressive. Iosefka was quick to return.

"Are you still in need of something?" She asked when she was close enough.

I hit the door to interrupt her.

"But I have nothing more to offer."

I hit the door again.

"Please stop! It's beasts you hunt." Iosefka pleaded. I paused, listening. "Why are you behaving like one?"

I didn't like that, but I curled my hand into a fist and restrained myself. Hitting the door now would be deconstructive.

_Keep talking. _"A-ku ghr-e."

"Excuse me?"

_**Keep talking.**_ "Pri-! k-hahk." I couldn't even repeat myself.

"I'm afraid… I cannot understand you."

"Yre." I wasn't even sure what I was trying to say as I held up the vial of blood she had given me and pointed at it with my stump.

"Are you still in need of something?" Iosefka asked. I nodded, and my heart plummeted when I saw concern etch onto her face. "But I have nothing more to offer. Please, try to underst-"

I hit the door again and pointed at the blood vail. Charades was only fun when you could tell what you were trying to say _before _it got frustrating.

"I will pray for your safety-"

I hit the door with a snarl, making Iosefka jump. It was good to know I could be an animal.

"What is it that you want?"

I pointed at the vial of blood.

"Do you want to know what that is?" Iosefka asked, almost in disbelief. I nodded. "You must not be from around here. That is a vial of healing blood, given to us by the Healing Church. It is a special vial, and is more potent than the stuff you'll find on the street. Use it wisely."

I had _so_ many questions about that, but I knew that most of the answers could be explained by the word 'fuckery'. This Healing Church fellow had the ability to heal people by having them drink his or her blood, and had used that power to make a religion. Iosefka was clearly a tinker that had found a use for the stuff.

I tipped the vial towards my head experimentally.

"You want to drink it?" Iosefka asked and I nodded confirmation, sort of. "That is an ineffective method of administering the blood. Stay there, I have something for you." She left the door and I heard the sounds of her searching through equipment. Soon she was back and handing something through the door.

It was a needle attached to a contraption that it looked like I could put the blood vial into. I looked at Iosefka. I couldn't hold two things at once.

"Hand me the vial back. I'll do it for you." She told me after a moment and reached for the vial she gave me. I handed it over and she inserted the vial, then handed it back to me.

"Jab it into your leg." Iosefka instructed me. "Make sure to avoid the bone, otherwise the blood will be spent attempting to heal that instead of your other injuries. Make sure to wash the needle between each use. The blood burns out infections, but it doesn't do well to use contaminated equipment."

I nodded to communicate understanding. Injecting blood directly into the bloodstream made more sense than swallowing it.

"Now, I must tend to my patients. You should go, I pray for your safety." Iosefka curtsied through the door and left, leaving me with a blood vial ready to be administered.

I looked at it. The orange liquid splashing around the little thing. Maybe it would help rid me of this damn weakness that had overtaken me. I was supposed to be strong, damnit.

I jammed the needle into my leg.


	3. 1 Corruption 3

I was screaming.

The blood had taken hold in an instant and I could feel it ripping through my body, finding things to fix, things that were just wrong, and things that could be better. It got it's bloody grip into _everything _of me. I staggered at the sensation and went for the wall to get support, something to lean against.

I didn't make it and fell down the stairs instead. Each bruise, each ache, and each scratch that I gained on the way down was snatched by the blood. I ended up lying at the bottom of the staircase, unable to move...

Giggling.

What? It was ticklish.

The rush had been, well, a rush. Oh lord, that felt so good. There was a rustic taste that had appeared at the back of my throat that reminded me of the experience, causing my giggles to intensify. This was a better feeling than junkies in my old territory had described. I wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing. I was still feeling good, it was as if I had been aching so much but hadn't realised it, then found relief.

That was probably exactly it, actually. I felt great.

_My old territory._ I stopped giggling. I had territory. Had had territory, past tense. I had been a warlord. It was such a long time ago, but it definitely happened. Those days hadn't been taken from me. There was so much that hadn't been taken from me.

I heard movement in the next room and tracked it with my bugs. The beast, it heard me giggling and was coming to investigate. It would kill me as quickly as it had the last two times if I didn't do anything. Damnit, I wanted to think.

I stood, this time moving at a speed much more familiar to me. While I sorted myself out, pulling the saw cleaver from my belt and swinging it with my old, more familiar strength, I sicced all my bugs on the beast. This time making sure to spread them out.

Instead of dying in droves, they were dying in twos and threes. Better. They were successfully distracting the beast from my presence, turning its actions to something resembling what it had been doing the last time it killed me.

I crouched and snuck into the room when the beast was on the farther side. I came to a stop in the same place I had been before and gathered bugs next to me. When there were a reasonable amount I had them start buzzing and gathering attention. In a flash the beast was on them and I launched my sneak attack.

My saw cleaver was heavier than what I was used to, even with my muscles miraculously returned to me. The blood hadn't regrown my arm, which would have been nice, but since it hadn't I was swinging with my off hand. Because of that as well as a lack of practice using the thing, the beast nearly dodged my attack and I only got a few inches of the blade into its neck on the downswing.

It dodged away, blood spurting from the wound. The first wound I had inflicted upon it. This wasn't an impossible fight.

Only… the beast was bigger now. The purple mist trail that had taken over the beast's eyes since last time were still there, and could have been even more intense than before. The _size _of the beast had increased too. It was about one tenth larger than it used to be.

A small number to think about, but when the original size was already larger than me, the sudden difference in height was pretty damn noticeable. It glared at me and snapped its jaws. I felt it tense through the bugs biting at its legs and dodged to the side at the same time as it leaped at me. Unfortunately I was dodging to my left, so I wasn't in a good position to give it another knick with my saw blade.

It crashed into another operating table and sent the contents scattering across the floor while the table itself hit the wall. It was stronger now. It had killed me twice and grown fat with strength.

Three things.

First, that didn't even make fucking sense.

Second, that was bullshit.

Third, that meant this was an uphill battle. I had been fighting those for years.

This beast was fucked.

But not yet. I had nicked its neck and I was tracking the bloodflow from there, but it wouldn't cause the beast to bleed out anytime soon. Cover was going to be useless if the operating table was any indication. A straight offencive wouldn't end well, since those claws would incapacitate me with a single swipe. I would need to dodge to my right if I wanted to catch the beast with a counterattack.

My tactic was basically to throw my sword and have it trip on it, but the beast was-

It was tensing its muscles. I immediately dodged to my right and slashed to my left, my efforts were rewarded when my weapon was nearly ripped from my grip and the sound of a blood spattering met my ears. The beast howled as I turned towards it and reestablished my footing.

Now it was bleeding from two places. It was tensing again.

I dodged and swung out. Another blood spatter. I got ready to dodge again as the beast moved in the same way it did before. It tensed again, I dodged again, it bled more.

The beast howled and started skirting around me. Now that I had drawn blood it was being more cautious. Yet, it didn't seem like it feared me. It might be too dumb for that. It tensed.

I dodged.

Blood spattered on the floor, the beast wasn't learning. That was it, then. I had already won.

Fourteen more times, it charged. Fourteen more times I made it bleed. Even after all that the beast wasn't showing any signs of slowing down. Which was bad, because I was. The entire time my bugs were still gnawing away at its eyes, ears, and hard to reach places. The whole time, it's eyes glowed with that ethereal purple mist. The whole time I was getting more tired.

Another attack. A slow reaction. It didn't swipe me like it had when it killed me, but I was bleeding again. Enraged, I still hit the damn thing before it turned around. Then I kept attacking.

There was no technique to my attacks. No rhythm or style or flourish, just in, then out. Sometimes the saw blade wasn't even facing the right direction to cut, I was hitting the beast even with the flat of the blade.

In the back of my mind I registered that the beast was tensing for another charge through my bugs. I dodged to the side and started walking in the direction it was charging. The beast charged, heedless of my evasive action. When it arrived I continued the assault. Hacking, slashing, making the beast bleed.

It howled and swiped my arm. I was tired, but I kept swinging. The beast tried to bite me and I managed to catch the blade on its maw and pushed it back. It slashed with a claw and I dodged back. Then I cut into its face, managing to catch the blade again and sawed.

It swiped and managed to catch me off guard, but I kept sawing. This thing was nearly dead, I could tell. I wasn't about to try backing off now and get killed again, damnit. If I was going to die, I was taking it with me.

It screeched again and I pushed, cutting the howl short. The beast fell forwards onto me. I was paying attention to muscle movements, so it took me off guard and managed to pin a leg with its body in its final moments. I had sawed into the beast's skull and grey matter was spilling out. Some dripped onto my trouser leg before I managed to free myself.

I wiped it away only to realise that I was _filthy_. There was no dirt or grime on me, just a little bit of brain juice and a whole lot of blood. Really, there was nowhere in the room that wasn't at least a little covered in red. The beast had maintained its explosive energy all the way to the end.

But now that the beast was dead, I was free to progress.

The next room had a dead guy in it.

I approached and squatted next to him. My bugs had already informed me of his presence, but this was the first time I'd seen him. I knew there was another corpse in the garden outside.

This one was sharply dressed, save for the blood that had spilled from the wound that killed him. His eyes were rolled up in his head and his mouth was hanging open. There was nothing I could do for his mouth, but I did close his eyes. I offered him a quick mental prayer then looted him.

He didn't have much in his pockets, just a coin that caught the light brilliantly at certain angles. I took it, but what he had at his belt interested me much more. There were two red vials there, each already inserted into a contraption like what Iosefka had given me. I made a mental note to thank her the next time I saw her. Even if I couldn't speak properly, I would try. So long as I tried to say it, I would be satisfied.

I moved one of the vials to my own belt, which seemed to be made with the intent of carrying these things, then inspected the other. A sniff at the needle told me it was blood, the _stuff on the street_ that Iosefka had told me about. This was apparently less potent that the vial the clinic doctor had given me, which was a good thing. If each of these vials held a rush like the one Iosefka's had given me, I would have been tempted to use one right there.

Instead, I slipped the blood vial into the second spot on my belt and kept moving. There was another short flight of stairs before I ended up outside in another garden. Like the one that came before it, this one was filled with gravestones, but was less ordered and less alive. I swept through the half-dead, twisted mess, looted the other dead guy and finding some bullets, but no gun, and looked out at the street through the gate.

The other side of the street dropped away, as the level of the ground became a steep decline after several feet. In the distance I could see a great bridge made of brick. It kind of reminded me of London bridge a little. The moon was full and shining it's pale light on stacks and stacks of buildings that were frankly Victorian in design and flanked the gorge that the bridge was built over.

My bugs gave me a more detailed impression of the exact levels of things. Where the road was uneven, where the gaps in the bricks were, and informing me where the larger gaps in the buildings were. They also gave me an impression of horror that I hadn't felt since Brian had his second trigger.

I could feel so many corpses. There were hundreds of maggots in each of them telling me just how delicious they all were. From where I was, I could look to the left and see three or four coffins scattered around an abandoned carriage. The bodies inside were either malformed like the flies were, half eaten by maggots, or both.

To my right was the corpse of a horse that had decomposed to the point that I could see its ribcage. The smell matched the sight. There were at least four more coffins in my reduced range that I couldn't see. Two of said coffins were _inside_ the garden I was standing in. I just hadn't noticed them because the bodies inside had already decomposed.

If this was the state of where I was, what would things be like in the expansive city I found myself in? This was just a drop in the bucket.

Crazed laughter echoed through the street. This was _just_ like the Slaughterhouse Nine.

I couldn't stand around. I needed to move. For all I knew there could be a serial killer right around the corner.

The gate was nearly rusted shut, but I was able to open it with some difficulty. My stump didn't even hold me back that much. Hinges creaked and groaned as I strained to open the gate. Iosefka needed to invest in some oil, this was supposed to be the entrance to a clinic. But if the Victorian equivalent of the Slaughterhouse Nine were in town, I could understand why she hadn't.

My way left was blocked unless I wanted to start climbing on things, but the way to the right was open. There were more abandoned carriages that I eyed warily, not liking the implications of the smashed glass and dead horses.

My bugs told me there was a moving heat source behind one of the carriages. It was unsteady, but was moving at a relatively even speed towards the corner. I decided to stand where I was as he appeared. The man was breathing heavily, and while I didn't have enough bugs around him to get a clear picture, I could tell that he had arms that were disproportionately long for his body.

His clothes were dirty, but not damaged. A striped green vest over a smudged white shirt, both of which were underneath a dark brown, almost black coat. The heat came from a torch that he held before him, making it hard to make out his hat and face. In his other hand he held an axe that made me glad for the distance between us.

He noticed me, yelled, "You!", and charged at me with his axe raised.

_Seriously? I hadn't even dwelled on it._

There was murder in his eyes. That much was evident by the tone of his shout and they way he hastened towards me, to say nothing of how he was brandishing the axe. I didn't want to challenge him bodily, so I backed up while my swarm advanced from the sides. He was immediately assaulted by the flies from the horse's corpse.

He closed the distance to about half of what it originally was by the time my bugs really caught up to him. He killed a few with a swing of the torch before continuing his advance on me, but I had already widened the gap and directed bugs to incapacitate him.

The man screamed as he went down, covered in a writhing layer of my minions. The torch and axe clattered to the ground and I parted the bugs around the heat.

His scream wasn't a fearful scream, but a frustrated one. I didn't like the implications. I approached cautiously and kicked the weapons further away. The whole time the man was rolling around on the ground screaming. When he rolled onto his back for a moment I stepped on his torso and called the bugs back a bit.

His attention was immediately fixed on me.

"_What's going on?_" I asked.

He spat at me. "Foul beast!"

I looked at him. His beard was scraggy, and it kind of reminded me of the beast I had killed.

"_If anything you're the beast. Tell me about the hunt._" I demanded.

"This is all your fault!" He howled, gripping uselessly at my leg.

"_What's my fault?_"

He struggled under my weight, hitting my leg with both arms while he kicked uselessly. I called my bugs back to him and lifted my foot off of him. I was expecting him to launch himself at me the moment I did, but he seemed eager to be distracted by the bugs.

I'd seen this kind of crazy before. The kind where someone just attacked everything in sight. Felt it, even. Recently. Killing him would have been a mercy. That's what it was supposed to have been for me, but I couldn't do it.

I walked past and hoped the bugs kept him occupied for long enough for him to forget about me. Hopefully, he didn't have any powers that could threaten what was left of humanity.

I felt safe thinking that. _Fuck_ what happened to me.

The only way that was open to me came to a dead end with two corpses outside of coffins. No, they were sleeping. My bugs could feel the warmth of their breath and the rise and fall that came from it. I almost took my chances and approached, but with the other guy fresh in my mind I decided against it.

Other than that there was a lever, and a closed gate that only seemed operable from the other side. In other words, it was useless to me. I didn't want to go that way anyway, my bugs could sense a really big guy that was carrying a huge axe around with him. Not dragging, carrying. It was a really big axe.

With nothing else to do, I pulled the lever and was rewarded with a ladder dropping down from high above. My hand twitched in annoyance. Climbing that was going to be a hassle.

One very long ladder climb later I was vindicated in the fact that I was right, but exhausted by the fact that I had just climbed up a fucking _long _ladder while missing one of my limbs. After catching my breath I looked up to see a lamp. It was exactly like the one in Iosefka's clinic, and it was just there in the middle of the path.

Past that, I could see that the path split in two. Left was closed off, while the way to the right was open. I was getting tired of this '_only one way to go_' bullshit, and clicked my tongue as I started moving.

Then I paused. There was a lit window just before the gate on the left, and from my bugs I could feel a person sitting in a wheelchair in the room beyond. There was a red lantern outside the window that my bugs didn't like the smell of. I went to the window and knocked.

I waited as the person wheeled themselves over.

"Oh, you must be a Hunter," His voice was young, but frail. Never a good combination. "And not one from around here either. I'm Gilbert, a fellow outsider."

I bristled. Was everyone going to point that out?

"You must have had a fine time of it." Gilbert continued.

"_You don't even know._" I told him.

"Sorry?" He asked, then coughed. One cough became two, then four. He sounded deathly ill.

I sighed. The guy before, and now Gilbert hadn't understood me, while I could easily comprehend what both were saying. Something was still messed up in my brain. I decided to just let him talk, then I could do charades when he was done.

"Yeah." He chuckled, then coughed. "Yeah, you must have. Yharnam has a special way of treating guests. I don't think I can stand if I wanted to, but I'm willing to help, if there's anything that can be done."

He paused. "This town is cursed." Gilbert's tone was serious. Much more serious than before. "Whatever your reasons might be you should plan a swift exit. Whatever can be gained from this place, it will do more harm than good."

"_Tell me about the hunt._" I said.

"I'm sorry, I didn't catch that."

"_Tell me about the hunt._"

"You're speaking gibberish to me. Sorry, but I can't help you." Gilbert said that, but he didn't move away.

I couldn't effectively do charades like this. There was a window between us, and it was barred to boot. I couldn't read his expression through my swarm without creeping him out. If I couldn't sign anything to him, maybe I could show him something. After some swift movements I had produced the paper I had woken up to and pressed it against the glass.

There was metallic creaking as Gilbert wheeled himself closer to inspect it.

"Paleblood?" He read aloud. "Hmm… never heard of it."

I pulled the paper back and pocketed it again with a sigh.

"But if it's blood you're interested in, you should try the Healing Church." Gilbert continued, gaining my attention again. "The church controls all knowledge on blood ministration, and all varieties of blood. Across the valley to the east of Yharnam lies the town of the Healing Church, known as the Cathedral Ward. And deep within the Cathedral Ward is the old grand cathedral."

I looked across the valley at the town. It certainly looked grand.

And Victorian.

It didn't look like it had been visited by a gold man recently, either.

"...The birthplace of the Healing Church's special blood, or so they say." Gilbert wasn't finished. "Yharnamites don't share much with outsiders. Normally, they wouldn't let you near this place, but…"

He paused, dragging it out for effect. Gilbert was placing importance on whatever he was about to say.

"The hunt is on tonight. This might be your chance..."


	4. 1 Corruption 4

_The Hunt._

It was something that had come up several times now. The note telling me how to transcend it, Iosefka's first words to me, and now Gilbert telling me it was happening right now.

But what were they hunting? The answer should be simple, things like the beast that had killed me twice before I got revenge. But then there was the man that tried to kill me. The two others that were faking sleeping. The beast had been ignored by Iosefka. Did she even know it was there? There was the man with the huge fucking axe.

Things weren't lining up.

I knocked on Gilbert's window again to let him know I was going.

"Across the valley to the east of Yharnam, you'll find the Cathedral Ward." Gilbert reminded me, misinterpreting my message. "Deep within lies the old main cathedral, said to be the source of blood. I haven't heard of Paleblood, but… that's your best bet if it's anything to do with unique types of blood."

So that's where the healer was. With luck, they would be able to help fix the issues I was having with communication, because it wasn't that people here weren't speaking a different language.

I was the one with a symptom, being the one that could understand but not speak. It wasn't that my passenger was translating for me, that was impossible. I had triggered already, then probably triggered again while I was still inside the locker. Doctor Mother had been very keen to tell me so when the world was ending.

My role in the end of the world, while horrifying, didn't fit the parameters of a trigger anyway. Not even my death. My first death had been calm. Expected. The best choice.

That phrase, '_my first death_' slipped in so easily.

Plus, I could read. The note read Paleblood to me the same as it read to Gilbert. I read it again, '_Seek Paleblood to transcend the hunt._' all in cursive handwriting reminiscent of surviving old english texts. I didn't miss that it was _Paleblood_, not _paleblood_. Whoever had delivered this to me was placing importance on the word. Paleblood was either a tinker like Iosefka, or a thinker, given the context.

Cathedral Ward should be my first destination, then. Paleblood was going to answer some questions.

I also needed to find some paper and ink. My mouth didn't work, but my hand- shit. My handwriting was going to be crap, but I could at least write down my questions.

With another tap on the window, I left. Leaving Gilbert to start spouting advice again. I considered entertaining him, but decided against it when I realised he was just repeating himself. He cut himself off halfway through, realising I was gone.

"Oh." I heard through my bugs, followed by a lot of coughing and Gilbert wheeling further into his house. He murmured to himself, "Goodbye, then."

_Goodbye._ I responded to myself as I moved far enough away that I lost the bugs in his house.

This place, Yharnam, was not in a good way. It didn't have most of the luxuries that my world seemed to have, even the other earths had had more advanced stuff than this. Those places had electricity, plastic, factory made tools, clothes, and equipment, etcetera. Yharnam didn't even have electric lighting. There were several moths that had fallen under my influence with burns from flying into burning lamps.

Was this a new world? Was I the first person from Earth Bet here? I couldn't just call this place Earth. It needed a name.

Earth Yharnam? No. That was the name of the town. Cathedral Ward seemed to be the more prominent place here, Earth Cathedral? No. Earth Ward? Definitely not. Shorten Yharnam to Yharm and call it Earth Yharm?

Fuck it. Earth Yharm.

As I was thinking all that I had crouched on a bridge and surveyed the street below. There were a dozen or more 'Yharnamites' as Gilbert put it moving as a mob. Each had a weapon. Some had torches. One had a shield.

Was this the hunt?

They were moving down the street towards me, which was why I decided to crouch. They were all dressed similarly to the man that had attempted to assault me before, and I worried that they would all charge me if they caught sight of where I was. What was making me feel claustrophobic right now was the fact that I could see the people and they were close enough I could make out clear details, but I couldn't tag them with bugs because they were all outside my range.

I was pulling bugs along with me as I moved, so I wasn't hurting _too much _for bugs in my swarm. The loss of perception still hurt.

From my vantage point I could see two more red lanterns set beside doors. One was fairly close, and I could reach it by dropping down to a lower floor, while the other was further down on the street where the mob was.

By the nearer door was a well that had a small pyre leaning against it. It was lit, and the smell was making my nose wrinkle. A horribly malformed man had been strung up and left to die. It was already too late for me to do anything.

I shook my head and focused on the mob with pitchforks. These guys were going to be a problem, knowing my luck. The problem was that they were going to want to stop me, question me, and possibly attack me on sight. The numerous coffins lining the street they were walking suggested they would go for the attacking option, and not stop until I was dead. Meanwhile, I wasn't totally sure I was comfortable killing them in return.

So many people were dead because of me, sacrificed in the name of the greater good. I hadn't hesitated them, I couldn't. But now that Scion was dead, did I need to put such a low value on life? I didn't want to. I wanted to value life. These guys were going to make that difficult if they came after me.

I could incapacitate them like I had the man before. But with my shortened range, I wasn't totally comfortable I would be able to leave them behind without forcing them into unconsciousness. That's how it would have to be. I wasn't killing for now, extraneous circumstances notwithstanding.

I needed to get moving.

Someone tried to jump me before I even rounded the corner. My bugs were in position and ready to ambush him before he even started smashing the boxes. I had the cockroaches, beetles, and flies all overtake him and soon he was rolling on the floor, yelling incoherently.

Had this madness affected everyone?

Not wanting to get closer to the insane man, I dropped down the ledge and approached the door.

"Are you that outsider?" A man asked from within before I could knock. I stayed my hand and waited. Couldn't say anything he would comprehend, anyway. He took my silence for a yes. "Well, sorry, but I don't want anything to do with ya. Trot along, will ya."

Reasonable reaction, considering the mob. I did.

The mob was moving, so I waited for them to pass the next door before knocking there.

"Lousy offcomer." Another man. This one's voice was deeper. "Who'd open their door on the night of a hunt!" There it was again. "Away with you. Now!"

It was fair advice, the mob was coming back and I didn't want to tangle with them. I skirted up to a higher path that they seemed to be ignoring and used that to advance. I spied a few more red lanterns and knocked on the doors there, but received similar reactions.

Yharnamites were a suspicious kind. They would have fit right in at Brockton Bay.

That they were familiar with death in the streets was another point in the similarities column. I had lost count of how many coffins I passed so far. Though, with what was happening towards the end of it, that would be something all of Earth Bet was familiar with.

There were more crazy mobsters that tried to ambush me. There were so many that I started preemptively swarming them with bugs. There was one who had a gun that I immediately confiscated. He had six bullets on him as well which were succinctly reappropriated to my gun. I started moving around with the gun in hand and my saw cleaver at my belt. I relieved them of their blood vials as well, and soon had a collection going.

It was better to keep at a range than to get up close and personal. Though, it was always good to have an option for the close and personal. I would have used the man's gun, but it was a rifle that required two hands. Those kinds of things were pretty handily outside of my capabilities.

Then I saw the bigger pyre.

It must have been more than twenty feet tall, and was fed with bone. The timber that usually surrounded the base of a pyre had been replaced with skeletons. I could see a half dozen of rib cages at least, as well as several oversized skulls and that wasn't even the most disturbing part.

Instead of a man, this pyre burned a beast. One just like the beast that I had killed in Iosefka's clinic. It's limbs were tied up in an attempt to recreate a crucifiction, with the upper limbs spread in a t-pose. An attempt, as the beast had apparently torn one limb free before the fire claimed it, breaking the wood of the crucifix rather than the rope tying it there.

There seemed to be a portion of the mob that was staying around the fires. For warmth or for motivation, I couldn't say. It may have been to guard it, even. Although I couldn't think of anyone who would want to take something like this pyre down. Whoever the police here were, maybe, but I hadn't seen any trace of them yet.

Behind the thing, going about thirty to forty feet up was a wall. It looked like it matched up with where I had seen the bridge extending from when I'd looked from Gilbert's.

The pyre represented a problem. The way forward was blocked on my side of the street, the street doors were closed, and there were thirteen crazy mobsters between me and the open passage on the other side of the street. It would be a fight that put me horribly outnumbered if they were as murderous as the last six guys I'd pacified, which was the crux of the matter.

I briefly considered climbing a building, but banished the notion because that would require more than one hand. There was nothing for it, then. I would have to fight through. Fortunately, they were all human, so I could overwhelm them with bugs.

Still, it didn't make sense to fight a battle where you were grossly outnumbered. My experience as a Master meant that there was a difference between fighting twelve people and fighting twenty people by yourself. At least, that was true in my case. More so, given that my range only extended to the other side of the street. I waited for the mob to join the people at the pyre.

They milled about some and turned around. I started moving.

There wasn't a good direct route to the exit beyond the pyre, I would have to run a few turns and the shortest route involved a one way drop. I committed without hesitating. My bugs were already overwhelming the guys with torches, they were the biggest threats.

There were shouts as a man in a black coat pointed my way before aiming a gun. I waited for his finger to twitch before sending flies into his eyes and dodging down. The gun went off and the four men that hadn't been overwhelmed yet started charging.

I made a hundred decisions in an instant. Selecting the bugs that were doing the least to incapacitate the ones that were already down and redirecting them to the greater threats. In the same moment I heard barking. A dog had entered my range, I could sense the fleas.

The fleas all bit at the same time and the dog didn't care. Of course it didn't.

I pushed the ecstasy the fleas were feeling from drinking the dog's blood to the back of my mind as a rustic sensation started welling up in the back of my mouth. The mob was attacking. I dodged a pitchfork and shot another man in the leg. He howled and swung, but I was still keeping my distance. My diverted bugs were catching up now.

The fleas were close- The fleas were here. I tried to dodge as the dog bounded towards me, but it was faster than I was and managed to sink its fangs into my stump. I grit my teeth and tried to kick it off. It was clearly rabid, hopefully the blood protected from rabies.

Kicking was fruitless, so I aimed the gun at it. Cockroaches were climbing on my chest and arm between the gun and where I had stowed the bullets. They had just finished reloading the gun that I could not load myself.

_Sorry Rachel._ I fired, sending the dog flying backwards and splattering myself with more blood. It had to be done. I suddenly felt light headed as I realised how much blood was flowing from my stump.

I still wasn't clear of the mob. Another man who had been outside my range until just now was aiming a gun at me. I was sending flies into the barrel and had one land between the hammer and firing pin to compensate, but I wasn't sure if it would be enough. I dodged to the side as another pitchfork stabbed past me.

My gun finished loading and I shot him in the foot. He went to the floor and the bugs made him stay there. Three left.

I may have not wanted to kill, but I certainly wasn't above maiming. My years as a hero hadn't stamped that out of me. Not when so many people were trying to kill me.

Although, the man with a gun that I had taken out first had bullets. The situation here was winding down, save for the other man with a gun. He was standing on a carriage, so my bugs had to travel a little further to reach him. The mystery of why his gun wasn't working hadn't been solved. I was making the fly leave the spot by the hammer when the gun wasn't aimed my way.

I looted four bullets off the first man and calmly approached the second. The option of using a blood vial was one that I weighed, but decided against given how I reacted the first time. If using the thing made me react the way I did before, then I wanted to have immediate safety before doing it again.

There was an elevated path behind the man that he had clearly used to access the top of the carriage. I did the same and welcomed him to the wonderful ways of the pistolwhip. He went down, I kept him down, and I made away with another five bullets.

As I was doing that, the first Yharnamites I had pacified left my dismal range, and started succeeding in getting bugs off of them now that I wasn't forcing it. I noticed that the bugs on the clothes just left, while the ones on skin kept biting. They were going for the blood. It meant that they were still down for a while after they left my range.

With that morbid observation, I moved on. Blood still dripping from my stump.

The area I found myself in after passing the bridge had a dried up fountain with some depressing sculptures. I sat myself against the marble and fiddled with the blood vials at my belt, then jammed one into my leg. The tickling sensation spread through my body and I watched through my shredded sleeve as my wound sealed itself up.

_Oh, to be a brute._

I giggled despite myself, then lunged forwards as a huge man covered in bandages charged where I just was. He had a huge brick in hand that would have split my skull if I let it hit me. If I hadn't dodged, my brain would have been paste, simple as that. The only reason I was able to dodge was because my bugs gave me an advanced warning. The big man was unreasonably sneaky.

The man was a brute. That much was evident by the way he was built and how he handled himself more than it was him possessing powers. It was also evident by the way he was acting. He rounded on me and charged again. I raised the gun and shot him, then dashed out of the way of his still-moving body.

He rounded on me again and charged, _again_. It was like the bullet hadn't even touched him. The swarm that I had gathered before wasn't with me, I had left it behind so the guys behind me wouldn't get up right away and I would have the chance to make some distance. I still had _some_ bugs, though, and more from the immediate area. Thing about dried up wells? Bugs love them.

I made cockroaches cover his eyes and made more bugs start biting at the backs of his knees and the soft parts of his elbows. That seemed to have a greater effect than shooting him had. The brute started tearing bugs away from his face, inadvertently hitting himself with the brick. He still didn't go down.

_Brutes._

Still, he was blinded, so I ran the fuck away.

The brute came after me twice more before he got the message and left me alone. While that was happening, I was also dealing with another small mob and two more dogs. Each time I had to put one down I offered a mental apology to Rachel. It was close, and I ended up having to use another blood vial, but I managed to find my way onto the bridge leading to Cathedral Ward with that rhustic taste in the back of my throat.

Now I just needed to cross it.


	5. 1 Corruption 5

There were two beasts like the one in the clinic on the bridge.

Not one.

_Two._

One was hard enough for me to take down by myself. I died twice doing exactly that, and who knew how large the mob that took down the burning beast was. Or how many casualties there were taking it down. From the smell of things, it was still burning.

Anyway.

_TWO BEASTS._

I had a dozen or so bullets in reserve after looting another man with some to spare, and I suspected they were made of quicksilver for some reason, that how they felt. Cold and soft. I put that down to the technological progress of Earth Yharm lagging behind. Regardless, I wasn't sure they would be enough to take down both of the creatures.

Did I take a chance and run past? I looked before I leaped, and I was glad I did. There was another brute standing around further down the bridge, covered in bandages much like the first, staring off into the distance. After that there was a long expanse leading to a closed set of doors.

If I was going to make it to Cathedral Ward, I would need whoever was on the other side of those doors to open them. That may be an issue, considering the fact that I couldn't speak, and writing in bugs wasn't about to win me any favours. But I needed to get there first, and I didn't want to have to talk while a brute and two beasts were trying to kill me. If I got lucky they would attack each other, but I wasn't about to take that chance.

That everything was trying to kill me seemed to be a pretty reasonable assumption at this point.

So. The two beasts first.

My bugs wouldn't do much to them, if my previous encounter was any indication. What covering them in bugs _would _do was give me an awareness of where they were and a sense of what they were _about _to do. That was key, since it gave me a chance to react.

Okay, so I could theoretically dodge their attack. I was pretty sure I could jam a blood vial into my leg if I failed to dodge once or twice and got ripped up, but it depended on whether they slashed my handy arm or not. That meant I could survive in an extended melee with them, which was something I had _not_ put the most effort into practicing during my days as a Ward.

Sure, I'd done the exercises and practiced sparring, but I was no Tecton, and I was certainly no combat thinker. I was a master that sent my minions to carry out my will. I had been a scout and coordinator first, melee combatant distant second.

There was a chance that the two of them could corner me, or pincer me by chance. This would go best if I was fighting one, not two. That meant that if I managed to separate them, the gun was out. A loud bang was a great way to get attention, so I stowed the gun away. I considered the saw cleaver. It was my only option, really. I wished there was a more useable weapon available. The axe's the Yharnamites were using were blunt and ineffective.

Now, how to goad one of two beasts?

I glanced around, then moved a few feet away from the beasts and picked up a stone that my bugs had noticed was loose. The aim was to attract the attention of one beast, so I waited until one of them wandered behind an obstruction before throwing the stone at the other. The stone sailed through the air and hit the beast on its hind leg, prompting it to aggressively spin to face in my direction and start stalking towards me.

I have to admit that was quite thrilling.

The other beast didn't seem to have noticed anything, but I didn't want to take any chances and backed up further. As soon as the beast was in range, I swarmed the thing. It snapped and struck out a few times, but my losses were minimal.

It kept snapping as my bugs kept biting. As I had many times before, I went for the eyes. The beast howled some, making me worried that the other one would come to investigate. I looked with my eyes to see that it was wandering away from us at the moment.

With the behaviour I'd seen from this place so far, I was expecting the beast to attack me while I was distracted. Instead, it was going to town on my swarm, which was spreading out so it could only get one or two bugs with each attack while still maintaining the number of bugs on the thing.

If it was a battle of attrition between the beast and the bugs, the beast would win. I already knew that, so I unholstered my saw cleaver and got ready to attack.

Something about that action pulled the Beast's attention away from the bugs. I got a split second of warning and dodged to the side with hairs to spare. There wasn't really any force I could put into my left hand's strike, but there was plenty that the beast was putting in. The counterattack involved getting out of the way and letting the beast rip itself apart on my saw cleaver while I held on for dear life.

That reaction also told me that these beasts were using their ears more than their eyes. I redirected bugs to climb into its ear canal and just keep going in.

Blood hit the ground and the beast turned towards me. It was operating in the same way the other one was. I was its target. All it was going to do was attack recklessly. We settled into a pattern. The beast would charge, I would dodge, and the beast tore itself apart.

This time the beast seemed to be tiring at the same rate I was. Its first strike had almost caught me off guard, but I had focused and not let it get near me since. The problem was that I had to evade _just_ enough that I could hold out the cleaver and let the beast do my work for me. Now that the fight had been going on for a while, it was getting dangerously close to getting me every now and then.

I nearly had it on the ropes, then bugs started dying behind me.

A chill went up my spine and I dodged early. One beast flew past me while the other altered the trajectory of their charge and bounded forwards while I was still off balance. I was ordering my bugs to swarm the other beast while trying and failing to put the saw cleaver between the jaws of the beast and my face.

Thankfully, it wasn't actually going for my face. It was going for my shoulder and once it got its teeth sunk in, it reared its head and started to shake. The strength drained from my arm holding the saw cleaver and it sailed into the window of a nearby carriage.

_No._ I was not about to let one of these beasts kill me again, damnit. I held on through sheer force of will when with a final swing, the beast released its jaws and threw me into a stone wall. It charged at me, going in for the kill. I raised my gun at the final moment and shot the motherfucker in the face.

It went reeling, but it wasn't dead.

My body didn't want to move, but I made it stand halfway up and dodge to the side as the other beast swiped at where I had been. I fumbled with my gun as I backed further away, trying to put it away before eventually just dropping it and having some oversized cockroaches carry it. Grabbing a vial from my belt took a moment because of the blood dripping down my arm. I still got it and jabbed it in, feeling immediate relief as that rustic taste returned to the back of my throat.

One of the beasts took my distraction as an opportunity to slash me, drawing blood all the way down my torso and undoing the healing I just underwent. It was rearing back to bite at me and I punched it in the head before it could. The attack bought me a second, and I dashed under the claw it raised to retaliate.

My bugs tracked the position of the two beasts as I fumbled for another blood vial. The belt was designed so that they were more accessible to right handed people, which grated on me as I finally retrieved my second vial and dodged another beast before jabbing it in.

Giggles escaped my lips as I dodged left and swiped my gun from the cockroaches obediently following me around. A dark mood overshadowed the surface pleasure.

This wasn't funny, damnit.

I considered shooting the next attacking beast, but decided to dodge back instead and circle around. It wasn't the one I'd been working on first, better to kill one and then the other, than to try and finish both off at the same time. The wounded beast charged and I shot the fucker, putting it off balance and letting me follow up by spinning the gun in hand and hitting it where I assumed its temple was.

The beast hit the floor and I dodged to evade the other beast. I put distance between us as I checked the downed beast with my bugs. It wasn't moving. Finally.

I still had the other beast to deal with and I wasn't about to get any rest, but now this seemed more manageable. The saw cleaver had hit the window of a carriage, but had failed to get all the way in. I made a pass and pulled it out. Then the beast and I settled into that pattern where I killed it.

It took a while, but the beast eventually killed itself on my weapon. I staggered away and leaned against a wall. Then my knees gave out and I sank to a sitting position against the wall. My breath came ragged and heavy.

A Yharnam man approached and was immediately set upon by bugs. I wasn't having any of his shit right now.

After catching my breath I made it to my feet and kicked the yelling man down the stairs he had come from, then moved on to the brute. He didn't even know I was there before he was blinded by bugs. There were three dark feathery forms on the ground around him that swarmed with bugs as well and kept my distance from.

It was a good thing I did. They flew into the air, cawing, screeching, pecking, and clawing with their talons. Two flew into each other and both fell back to the floor. One moved to attack bugs, while the other didn't. None of the birds stayed up. They didn't seem capable of sustained flight.

I left the bugs that were on them where they were as I moved on to clearing in the bridge after them. I ducked behind a pillar and had my bugs retreat and regroup. The brute charged at a wall, but it wasn't anywhere near where I was. The crow- _things _made more noises, but seemed to calm down once the bugs were gone. The brute charged a few more times before eventually calming down as well. I tracked him with flies and he never came close to me.

Once things were calm again, I slunk away down the bridge. Nothing but empty space and a closed door between me and Cathedral Ward, now. I stepped on a loose piece of cobblestone, making it clink against its neighbors.

A horrifying mix between a howl and a scream filled the air, stopping me in my tracks.

One of these days I was going to learn to stop thinking.

The scream was punctuated by faint vibrations in the ground that were picked up by my smaller bugs. Then more obvious vibrations. Then even bigger ones. The scream stopped.

There was a moment of silence.

Then a fucking _Endbringer_ leaped over the gate leading to Cathedral Ward.

I was stunned. I hadn't expected this, how could I have? Back on Bet the fights I had with the Endbringers were built up to by months of rising tension. Even the Leviathan fight had a degree of tightening nerves before it. It had taken me off guard at the time, I had just been trying to go undercover as a villain, but even still there had been a gathering of heroes and villains before the fight. Legend did his uplifting speech where he told the room that a quarter of them were going to die if we got lucky.

Then I calmed down, a sharpness settling in my mind. This thing reminded me more of Noelle than it did Behemoth or Leviathan. In size, if not shape. It was vaguely humanoid, with arms, legs, a head, and a sunken rib cage that showed off a rib cage where the individual ribs didn't necessarily meet at the middle, and all of them were sharp and pointy. It was covered in fur that was less than half an inch thick in some places, while in others the fur was shaggy, matted, and longer than my own.

The thing's left arm, which was covered in such fur, was grossly larger than its right. Both arms had hands that ended in claws, and it used the larger one as an additional point of contact with the ground. It was a pleasure to look at that compared to the head.

The head of the thing was almost like a deer's, in that it had the same general shape and horns. That was where the similarities ended, because the maw of the thing was dripping blood, and had a row of sharp teeth dedicated to eating things that deer didn't. Its horns grew asymmetrically, with one thick horn growing out of the right side of its head and curling around the half dozen smaller horns that twisted in a similar way.

Its eyes were too small to make out as it crossed the bridge making its way towards me. The fact that its head was looking at me was much more obvious. I directed my bugs to cover the thing and start biting as it jumped.

My gaze followed it up and I dodged back… right under its oversized claw.

The attack hit me in the head first, then slipped down my body and raked its claws down my front. _All the way down._

Blood spilled from me as I struggled to comprehend what just happened, my head spinning and bugs obediently following my order to climb on the thing. They were too late to give me any warning as I stared dumbly at the thing. It casually reached forward with both arms and picked me up, almost gently.

Then it hurled me off the bridge, over the dried up fountain, and far down to a place where I finally hit something, part of my body hitting a stony wall while the other part wrapped around the corner. I fell down to the ground far below. Nothing more than a broken body.

Dark mist welcomed me.

~Drip~Drip~

When I came to I was staring at two moons piercing a cloudy sky.

That made me frown. There was only one moon, how could there be two? I reached up to wave a hand in front of my eyes but nothing happened. That made me squint as I frowned. Why hadn't anything happened?

When I glanced down I remembered. No right hand.

I used my remaining hand and touched my face. I still had my glasses, so I could see. Why had I been seeing two moons? I looked up again.

_Not moons,_ I realised. _Eyes._

The clouds had been the face surrounding the eyes, I had just been too disoriented to realise. Glancing past the side of their head told me the moon was exactly where it was supposed to be, then I made eye contact again. I stared back at the eyes.

Their face was _perfect_. I couldn't find a flaw or blemish to sneeze at. Her, it was a her, hair was neatly cut into bangs that split just off centre while longer strands framed the face, giving it just enough asymmetry to not be inhuman. Her skin was frightfully pale, reminding me of when I first saw Dinah all those years ago, but there was a touch of colour here and there, signalling to health that the drug addled precog had not possessed. The hair was a white even paler than the skin. She was looking down at me with… it was less of an expression and more of an intent.

She was looking at me carefully. Like she wanted to care for me, hold me, and tell me everything was going to be alright. Yet at the same time, there was no intent to carry through on those desires. All summed up in the way the eyebrows were arching over the eyes, how the lids were positioned, and how the mouth hung open ever so slightly.

I reached up with my hand and touched her cheek. It was hard. Wooden.

A hand slowly wrapped around my own and held it there. It was wooden, like the face, and segmented. The craftsmanship was beautiful.

"Hello, Good Hunter." She said, breaking the spell somewhat. Her voice was soft and soothing, but that wasn't it. I wanted to ask about the hunt. Why did she call me a hunter?

"I am a doll," She continued, and I made the connection. She was. I glanced over to the building and saw the doll had vanished. Well, she hadn't. She just moved. "Here in this dream to look after you.

"Honourable hunter, pursue the echoes of blood and I will channel them into your strength. You will hunt beasts and I will be here for you, to embolden your sickly spirit."

The doll finished speaking and released my hand. When I started lowering it, she gently tugged at it, so I stopped. She placed one hand underneath my own, mirroring the gesture with her other. A silver orb swirled into existence above my own.

So Doll was a Case 53. A Trump with powers that were reminiscent of Ingenue's if that speech was any indication. I was immediately suspicious. People didn't just offer their powers like that.

Doll's power was an oddly calming one, forcing a calm over me which I ended up basking in. The doll made the orb swell until it was roughly the size of my palm. It captured my attention and I didn't think I could have said anything if I was able.

Which I wasn't, so… moot point. I wondered if Stranger protocols were necessary.

Doll seemed to be satisfied with the demonstration and pulled her hands back, the silver orb vanishing as she did. The calm sensation left with it, and I ended up staring at the sky. I didn't feel any urge to move at the moment.

I just fucking died, leave me be.

"Good hunter, are you well?" Doll asked matronly.

"_You wouldn't understand me if I told you._" I said.

Doll tilted her head quizzically. "I would be unable to assist you if I did not attempt to. What would prevent me from understanding you?"


	6. 1 Corruption 6

I stared at the eyes of Doll. The intent there had gone from concerned to curious. It was a subtle shift, but was all that was possible given Doll's wooden features. Meanwhile in my court, my brain was churning, trying to comprehend what just happened.

Doll had understood me. A part of me was jumping for joy that someone had finally understood my words. Another part of me thought this was just a dream. A horrendously vivid dream, sure, but a dream nonetheless. That part was waiting for the rug to be pulled out from under me. It hadn't been pulled yet, but it would hold out until it eventually was. Then it would be yelling _I told you so_ at all the rest of me.

Another part of me wanted to cry. I shot that part and it back in the coffin where it belonged.

I sat with a grunt, expecting a broken body. To my surprise, I was fine. I stood shakily, recalling how broken I had been with each new movement, afraid that the wounds would catch up to me and I would spontaneously break again.

They didn't, though, and I made it to my feet. As I moved my clothes didn't fall away in ribbons like I expected them to. My clothes had been repaired.

Doll rose when I did. I had been resting my head on her lap.

"_Repeat after me. The Simurgh and Tattletale sitting in a tree._" I said, testing the water.

"The Simurgh and Tattletale sitting in a tree." Doll repeated, confusion in her voice but not her face. Then, "If you are not feeling well, you should rest a while. You won't be able to hunt with a troubled mind."

"_Stop._" I told Doll, and she nodded respectfully, clasping her hands in front of her. I had so many questions. Doll seemed like she had answers, I just needed to figure out where to start.

"_I keep dying._" I eventually said. "_And every time I do, I come back here. Why?_"

Doll nodded again, then answered, "This is the Hunter's Dream. A nightmare for the diseased. Theirs is the will be afflicted with the disease of madness, be on the verge of death, and still live. Such is the dream of the hunter."

"_Hold up._" I told Doll. "_Can you repeat that simpler?_"

"This dream exists to sustain the _Hunt_." Doll said. I homed in on that word and knew what my next question would be. "A hunter works to hunt their prey. Not even death can stop a Hunter that dreams."

"_What is the hunt?_"

"I do not know the details." Doll tipped her head apologetically. "Such questions would be better directed towards Gehrman."

"_Who is Gehrman?_"

"He was a hunter long, long ago. But now serves only to advise them. He is obscure, unseen in the dreaming world. Still, he stays here, in this dream. Such is his purpose."

"_Where is he?_"

"He normally welcomes new hunters in the workshop." She was referring to the only building in this place. I turned and looked at it, thinking. The doors had opened since I was last here.

"Good Hunter, if I may…" Doll asked. I turned back but didn't say anything, letting her talk. "You seem haunted. What is troubling you?"

I arched an eyebrow. "_Right now?_" I hummed and tried to tap my mouth with the hand I no longer had. I looked down, then glanced back up. "_I'm figuring things out. There's the craziness in Yharnam and then the absurdity you've just told me. I'm getting there, but the picture still feels empty. Other than that stuff… I dunno. I shouldn't have the weight of the world on my shoulders anymore, but…_"

I looked up at the moon again. "_I did it. I was supposed to be done._"

Doll gave a small, polite curtsy and didn't say anything.

"_Do you know of Earth Bet?_" I asked.

Doll tilted her head quizzically. "I am not familiar with that term. Is that where you are from?"

"_Yeah…_" I glanced down and looked at the little person in the gravestone, the one that would take me to Iosefka's.

"_What are these?_" I asked.

"Ah, the little ones." Doll spoke fondly. "Inhabitants of the dream, they find hunters like yourself, worship and serve them. Speak words they do not, but still, aren't they sweet?"

I looked at it, it's mouth hanging open as it slowly rocked back and forth, forever reaching for me. "_You could see it that way._" I told Doll. I certainly didn't share that view, they were unnerving.

I turned back to Doll. I had more questions,

"_You know of Yharnam right?_"

"My knowledge of the waking world is limited." Doll confessed. "My place is to remain within the dream and guide you."

"_Gehrman would know, right?_"

"He knew more of Yharnam that this doll ever did." Doll affirmed.

I pondered for a moment. "_Then I should be asking Gehrman these questions, shouldn't I?_"

"If your questions pertain to the hunt, then Gherman would possess the answers."

"_I'm not done talking to you._" I told Doll as I started turning away. "_I still have questions._"

"I will be here when you ask them, Good Hunter." Doll told me as I walked to the workshop.

The workshop was a cluttered thing. Not as cluttered as some tinker workshops I'd been in, but still pretty messy. One wall had a chest, a cabinet, a lit fireplace, and a workbench lined up, while the other had stacks of books against the wall, interrupted by openings in the wall leading back outside. The far end of the workshop looked more like a church. There was a statue, and before that, an altar with a lot of lit candles on it. Everything was either unpainted wood, or red fabric. The blood theme was strong here.

There was an old man who I could only assume was Gehrman sitting in a wheelchair just before the altar and off to the open side of the workshop. His hair was long and white, and looked like it had been that way for decades. The age in his hair was matched by the age in his skin, wrinkled as it was. One of his feet had been replaced by a peg leg, and he was sitting forward in his chair, leaning on a wooden cane.

I stepped before him and evaluated the old man. He looked like he might have once been an experienced soldier. There were plenty of people like that on Earth Bet, you just didn't tend to meet them unless you were doing the PR rounds as a hero. As I sized him up, he evaluated me in turn.

"Ah-hah, you must be the new hunter." Gehrman said, his voice scratchy in the way people tended to speak once they passed eighty. It was warm and welcoming in a way that Doll just hadn't. "Welcome to the Hunter's Dream. This will be your home, for now. I am…"

He paused, letting out a dissatisfied sound. "_Gehrman_, friend to you hunters. You're sure to be in a fine haze about now, but don't think too hard about all of this. Just go out and kill a few beasts. It's for your own good. You know, it's just what hunters do!"

That made me arch a fucking eyebrow.

"You'll get used to it…" Gerhman trailed off.

"_I'm going to ignore your advice, old man._" I told him testily. He grimaced as he heard me speak. "_I'm thinking real hard about this because I'm supposed to be dead. Me being alive wasn't in the fucking cards. You're asking me to go kill some beasts because 'it's what hunters do'? Fuck you. I killed a god, damnit. I wanted to have some fucking rest, but here I am. You better be able to give me some goddamn answers._"

"You're certainly a strange one." He commented, tightening his grip on the cane. "What brought you to my doorstep?"

"_You're the one with the answers. What brought me here and how do I get it to send me back?_"

"Oh, now this is unprecedented. A Hunter wanting to wake from the dream? There is no better way to combat the scourge."

"_This might blow your mind, but I don't care about the scourge._" I snapped. "_I care about why I'm here._"

"To hunt-"

"_Not fucking good enough._"

Gerhman paused and evaluated me with fresh eyes. Much sharper than the pleasant old man from a minute ago. "I do not control this dream, Hunter."

"_Taylor._" I said. "_My name is Taylor._"

"I do not control this dream... _Taylor_." Gherman stumbled over my name in much the same way he stumbled over his own. "It extends where it does, and sometimes a wayward hunter washes up on these shores."

"_Shores._" I repeated flatly.

Gerhman made an unsatisfied noise. "This is a safe haven for hunters. That you have appeared here means that you are undoubtedly a hunter. You said you killed a god. Then you are a hunter of the highest order. One that I can respect given…" he tapped his leg with the cane.

"_I'm not satisfied, Gherman._" I deadpanned.

"I give what information I am able." He rebuked, then swept his arm to the workshop. "This is a workshop where hunters used blood to enhance their weapons and flesh. We don't have as many tools as we once did, but…" He paused, searching for the words. "You're welcome to use whatever you find."

"_Uh huh._"

"Even the doll, should it please you…"

My eyebrow, which had calmed down, re-arched itself. That was a sentence with dangerous connotation. I decided not to comment on it.

"_Anything else to say?_" I asked.

"Only advice." He said. "Do go out and kill some beasts. It does wonders for clearing the head."

I had already decided I didn't like Gherman. His advice made me start to _dislike _him. Still, he was the second person I had spoken to and I needed answers.

"_Yharnam._" I said. "_What's wrong with it?_"

"The beastly scourge." Gherman replied like he'd answered this question a thousand times before.

"_Do you have anything more specific?_"

"Only what I remember from walking the city myself." Gherman confessed. "That must have been, oh, decades ago at this point."

"_Were you a hunter?_" I asked.

"I was around when the first workshops were built, yes." Gherman answered politically. "I was there when they were taken apart as well."

"_So the beast scourge has been going on for decades?_"

"It comes and goes." Gehrman said sagely. "I am here to assist the hunters when it is here."

"_What's the cause?_"

"The cause?"

"_The origin. Who or what made the scourge?_"

"Oh, the scholars would have loved you." Gehrman chuckled to himself. "The scourge was first noticed a number of short years after the healing church rose to prominence."

"_So the church caused it?_"

"The hunters of the church were the most active of their time. I can't see why they would spend so much of their resources to contain something that they unleashed."

_Naive._ I thought. Unleashing a danger upon the populace then becoming the greatest savior was a textbook publicity stunt. The church was revered, going by what I had gathered. I wasn't about to assume that this reverence was one hundred percent, or even fifty percent deserved.

Make that twenty percent, some people were evil.

"_How do I get to Cathedral Ward?_" I asked, changing the subject somewhat.

"I couldn't say for certain." Gherman answered. "In my time the quickest route was to take the bridge."

"_There's a huge fucking thing in the way and it killed me when I tried to cross._"

"If there is a beast in your way, then it is your duty to kill it." Gehrman advised. "They are not human, nor can they ever be tamed. All they do is kill. You should do your duty and hunt the beast."

"_It threw me across the goddamn city._"

"Then don't let it catch you." Gehrman's eye twinkled. "It is your arm that you are missing, not your leg."

I stopped humouring the old man there and left without ceremony. He didn't say anything and watched me go. Coming down the stairs I found some of the little ones as Doll had called them were offering me an item. It was a bell. Old and rusted, but when I tilted it to the side it still let out a resonant sound. There was a second gathering of little ones that gave me a second bell alongside a small pistol. They offered no explanation and vanished into the floor.

Doll kneeling next to the little one that liked to take me to Iosefka's clinic. She stood gracefully and faced me as I approached.

"Good Hunter," She dipped her head in reverence as she said it. "Have you been lighting the lanterns in the waking world?"

"_Lanterns?_" I asked.

"Yes. The lanterns serve as beacons for the little ones, and allow them to travel to different places in the waking world from the dream."

"_I didn't know they did that. It seems useful, do you have a lighter?_"

Doll tilted her head to indicate confusion. "I do not know what you are referring to, Good Hunter."

"_Something to light the lanterns with._"

"You shouldn't need a tool to light the lanterns. A hunter that came through the dream before you told me once that he lit the lanterns with by rubbing the glass briefly. While another mentioned that she had to snap her fingers on the wick to ignite it."

I had been expected that, given what Gehrman had been saying. "_What happened to those hunters?_"

Doll turned a fraction to the right and pointed. "The first hunter rests there." She pointed somewhere else. "The other rests there."

Both places she pointed at were gravestones.

"_Is that what's going to become of me?_" I asked carefully.

Doll turned to me. "It may." She said simply. It was the most reassuring thing she could have said.

"_I see._" Kind of expected, really. I wasn't allowed to rest even after saving the world, or the end of it. The lines blurred together and I hadn't been around to see what happened after I finished Scion. Then when it was all said and done, I'd be put in a grave.

"Before you go, there is something you may want to know." Doll said. I waited for her to continue. "When you die, your blood echoes in the one that slew you. When you slay another, their blood echoes in you, along with any echoes that creature may have possessed. Right now there are no echoes within you, they were taken by the one that killed you.

"As I sense no echoes, I cannot channel them to assist you. But if you were to acquire some, I could use them to enhance your self with the experience they leave behind."

Not Ingenue, then. More like Victor from the Empire Eighty-Eight, a skill vampire. _God,_ that was a long time ago.

"_So right now my blood is echoing in the one that killed me?_" I checked.

"That is true." Doll confirmed. "It is possible for blood echoes to be left behind and easily reclaimed from the spot where you die. But for such an event to occur, your death would need to have occurred at the hands of none other than yourself."

"_I'm not going to commit suicide._" I told Doll.

"In the event of an accidental death, then."

"_Fine. Anything else I need to know?_"

"Echoes are tied to the dream. When you have the echoes coursing through you, you will be able to carry them safely. The same is not true for those that do not dream. They will be driven mad by the lives thrust upon them by the echoes, and they will have the experience of these lives, though not the form to necessarily use it. There may… be physical alterations as well."

I recalled the beast in Iosefka's clinic. "_An increase in size and purple mist drifting from the eyes?_"

Doll gave a deep nod. "That is how the other hunters have described it."

"_Thank you, Doll._" I said. "_I think I like you more than I like Gehrman._"

Doll gave the best approximation of a warm smile, but her face didn't change much. "I am grateful for your kind words, Good Hunter."

"_Taylor._"

Doll bowed her head further than before. "It is an honour, _Taylor_."

I breathed deeply and considered what lay ahead. The bridge beast, as I decided to call it, would be bigger now that it had my echoes. It would be faster and more tactical to boot, given my luck. There was no way I was going to be able to fight it as I was now.

Then I should start finding some beasts to kill, get some echoes and use Doll's power to the best of my ability. I was glad a power like that hadn't shown up in Earth Bet. If the Slaughterhouse Nine had got a hold of it…

I shook my head. Jack slash was effectively dead where we left him, _I saw him, left behind for eternity_. It had been brief, but I did see it there amongst the infinity. There was no point in dwelling on it now.

I gave Doll a nod and crouched down to let the little one pull me away.

The doll nodded in kind. "Farewell, _Taylor_. May you find your worth in the waking world."

~Drip~Drip~


	7. 1 Corruption 7

I knocked on the door to Iosefka's clinic. She was more prompt in her response this time, yet more cautious. The reaction was appropriate. I hadn't exactly been a peaceful visitor last time, but I wanted to say thanks for the blood vial.

"Oh, well, hello…" Iosefka said, causing confusion to flicker across my expression. There was something different about her.

"_Hello._" I responded.

"... Splendid." Iosefka commented. "Let me ask you a small kindness. You're off to hunt, I presume?"

Irritation replaced the confusion. She was reminding me of my talk with Gehrman.

Iosefka continued, "Then, if you find any survivors, tell them to seek Iosefka's Clinic. Upon my Hippocratic oath, if they are yet human, I will look after them, perhaps even cure them. This sickness, these beasts, they are not to be feared."

Now she was deviating away from Gehrman, and sounding more like a crazy person. "_What changed?_"

"This time the night is long. I might be trapped here, but I should do something to help. I'll even offer a reward for your co-operation. Tempted?" I wasn't. "Well, off you go then."

"_I'm not doing anything until you explain yourself._"

"If you find anyone who's still human, send them straight to Iosefka clinic. You can assure them, there's no place safer."

"_Can you understand me?_"

"Please do me this service."

She couldn't understand me. "_Iosefka…_"

"Yes?" She asked.

My alarm bells were ringing, I needed to take stock. For some reason Gerhman and Doll could comprehend me perfectly, while Iosefka and Gilbert couldn't. I could understand each person just fine, and even read. There was something different there, a reason why that was how things were. I just couldn't place a finger on why.

Before, when I had been falling apart. When I was one with my passenger and my passenger was one with me, I had been unable to comprehend language, or even faces. After… Scion, I had been talking to a woman holding a small gun. She had told me to talk, and had understood me. We had a conversation while the borders between my passenger and myself were breaking down more and more. Then she shot me in the head, twice.

When I came to, my power had been neutered. The bleed between me and my passenger had stopped, but my brain had still been scrambled until I had taken Iosefka's blood vial. But even that hadn't fixed everything.

_Nine millimetre brain surgery._ I realised. _Scary._

The blood repaired the damage to my body, restored my vitality, and cleared me of any exhaustion. Yet it didn't seem to restore things that were lost. If it did, I would have both arms. The bullets had taken whatever let me speak when it severed my connection to my passenger.

Except that wasn't it. It couldn't be it. How could Doll or Gehrman understand me if it was? Iosefka had recognized when I said her name.

This wasn't getting me anywhere.

I looked at Iosefka, recalling the reason I walked up the stairs in the first place. "_The blood vial you gave me before, it was helpful. Thank you for it. Do you have any more?_"

"I do apologise, that wasn't clear." Iosefka leaned closer to the door "Did you say you wanted a blood vial?"

I closed my eyes, hating what I was about to say. "_Yes._"

"A moment please, Hunter." Iosefka stepped away from the door for a moment. When she returned she was holding another orange blood vial. "Consider this incentive for us working together."

I paused, then accepted the vial. Had Iosefka been mastered? She was acting like she was. The way she spoke, how she was negotiating with me, and even the way she met my eye through the gaps in the door, it all felt like a different person.

The Master Stranger protocols echoed in my head. Going by eyes-on, Iosefka was compromised. Everyone was, really. But how? A body puppet? Iosefka's posture and way of moving hadn't changed, while the way she spoke had. A suggestion power then? Was it some Yharnam madness getting to her?

It said something that I was considering that a likely cause for this change.

"_Thanks._" I told her. "_Stay sane._"

"Find those souls, Hunter." Iosefka requested. "Tell them of Iosefka clinic. They're in your hands, and soon, mine…"

With that haunting anecdote, I fixed the blood vial into an administration device and slotted it into my belt. I wanted to use it right away, but that would have been as much of a waste as it was a horrifying sign.

The blood was addicting.

Worse, I was already addicted to it.

It reminded me of the speech I gave to those kids just after becoming a Ward. How drugs weren't bad, but so, so good that it would make you destroy everything in an attempt to get more. With that in mind and given how widespread these blood vials seemed to be, I wouldn't have been surprised if fights had broken out over the small vials.

There was cancer in Yharnam. I couldn't be sure if the healing blood was a symptom or a cause. Every time I thought about it I remembered the experience of the blood taking over me as I tumbled down the stairs, giggling. A chortle escaped me the memory was so vivid.

I passed the lantern at the bottom of the staircase leading up to Iosefka's door. I touched the side of the lantern and a pale energy shimmered from where my finger touched the glass. It spread across the surface in an instant, then converged on the wick in the lantern, lighting it with a soft ignition sound.

Four little ones promptly climbed up from the floor. One turned to face me and reached up with it's tiny hands. The other three paid their attention to the lantern. One reached up with both hands, while the other two clasped their hands in silent prayer.

Yeah, these guys creeped me out.

I walked away and started putting conscious effort into gathering my swarm.

~Drip~Drip~

There was another lantern by Gilbert's that I lit to a very similar effect. I did stop by his window and try to communicate with him, but found he was less capable of comprehending me than Iosefka was. Nothing new was communicated, but I think he enjoyed the company.

From that elevated position I could see the bridge to Cathedral Ward, and the Bridge Beast on top of it. I watched purple mist drift from its eyes as it stalked around the space. The brevity of the time it took for it to kill me meant I didn't have a good handle on how big it had been. That being said, it looked bigger. With that terrifying observation to haunt me, I set to exploring.

The plan was to use Doll's power in preparation of fighting the Bridge Beast. Doing so would involve killing as many creatures as possible, which was the problem. I didn't want to kill anyone. _They _wanted to kill _me_. Which, fine, they could try. But I just wasn't ready to start killing people in the street. I wasn't Jack Slash, I didn't want to be.

That meant I was limited to rabid dogs and beasts. If I ever saw Rachel again, I could only hope she understood.

I traveled the same route as I did before, but dedicated more time to exploring. There was a surprising number of blood vials and quicksilver bullets discarded on out of the way corpses that I quickly reappropriated. Soon enough, I was crouched behind a pole surveying the mob surrounding the beast pyre.

There were people coming and going like before, and everything seemed fine. Which was odd.

I looked at each of them in turn. _There._ That one with the shield. I shot that guy in the foot, how was he walking around still? It wasn't just him, I figured out the two other people I shot who were still walking around, unconcerned with the major wounds I inflicted upon them not hours before.

They must have healed with blood. There was too much of that stuff around here.

I prepared to make a break for it the same way I did before, putting bugs into better positions this time and having them start biting _before_ I revealed myself. It worked like a charm and I was able to make my way across the street unmolested.

Then fleas entered my range as a dog started barreling towards me, completely ignoring the tide of bugs. Hadn't I killed the dog? They must have found a replacement.

Not wanting a repeat of last time, I waited for it to get close and when the rabid thing pounced I gave it a bullet for its trouble. The bullet pushed the dog back with a sharp whine, redirecting its trajectory like the bullet was more of a cannon ball. It hit the ground and didn't get back up.

The dog dealt with, it was a matter of pistolwhipping the two guys with guns and confiscating their bullets before moving on to the next area. From there I deviated from the route I traveled before, dropping down a ledge hidden by barrels instead of passing by the fountain and brute that I didn't want to deal with, gathering new bugs for my swarm as I walked.

Dogs in cages surrounded me, harkening back to the inhumane mistreatment of dogs by the Empire Eighty-Eight. I wanted to set these things free. But given how they were snapping and barking, they were just as rabid as the one that bit me. It took most of my bullets to put them all down.

Two were out of their cages and tried to ambush me. There were intelligent things despite the bloodlust, only moving when my back was turned and going for the kill once they were close enough. I shot both as they leaped at me, easily turning and aiming in a swift movement. The fact that I didn't have any spiders to help my aim didn't mean much when I was jamming the barrel of the gun against whatever I was shooting.

Another dog was barking at someone's door. After shooting it I only had four bullets left.

The inhabitant broke the silence as I let my bugs reload the gun. "Oh, you're a hunter, aren't ya?" It was an older voice. Female, reminding me of Gehrman. I'd heard that tone before, _entitlement_. "Then, well, do you know of safe places?"

It felt too perfect. Iosefka telling me to look for survivors seeking refuge, then almost immediately coming upon someone looking for exactly that. I wasn't totally comfortable with the fact that Iosefka's was the safest place either. Her change was… unsettling.

"_You should stay inside._" I told the old woman through the door.

She was speaking over me, "I've heard, I have. Shutting up indoors isn't always enough."

My thumb fiddled with the hammer of my gun and I forced myself to put it away. People like her were always difficult.

"If you hunters got off your arses, we wouldn't be in this mess." The old lady told me, accusatory in the way only the most arrogant people could manage. "You're obligated to help me, you hear? So what'll it be? Are you gonna tell me, or not?"

"_You're making me not want to help you._" I told her back.

"Never heard of that spot. Are you a hunter from outta town? Then get away from my door. I'll have nothing to do with outsiders!"

I blinked. That had been a quick one-eighty. The fact that there was nothing to do but move on without helping was going to weigh on me, but I wasn't sure helping was the best thing to do in this case. Whatever I said was going to be ignored, and unwanted help could be worse than doing nothing.

I could tell her about Iosefka's clinic. But then there were the eyes-on protocols again, telling me that Iosefka was compromised. But on the other hand, this old lady's house was also compromised if there were dogs scratching at her door.

Conflict persisted within me as I moved on from the old lady's door. It felt _wrong_, leaving someone like that, but what was there to do? Leave a note, is what.

I quickly found a house that had been vacated and looked inside for some paper and pen. Instead of a pen, I found ink, and eventually a quill. Thankfully the vacated house's office room hadn't been ransacked yet. I wrote 'Seek Iosefka's clinic.' on the paper and slid it under the door. I had no idea how she would get there or if she would go, but she wasn't about to accept my help, that was for sure.

I rationalised it by thinking if she went to Iosefka's, then at least the old woman would have someone around who was able bodied. If she was left here, worse things would inevitably happen.

As an afterthought, I had some bugs capable of hibernation crawl into various parts of her attire and start their slumber. That way, if I encountered her again, I could identify her from afar. My reduced range would make that a chore, but I could make sure she made it to Iosefka's that way.

Thankfully, I was soon given a distraction by my bugs alerting me to the presence of another person standing just at the fringe of my range. They were clearly different from the ones I had encountered up until now. They were standing still with their arms crossed, rather than staggering around with a weapon in hand, or faking death like all the others. It made me curious.

I stopped moving as well and had flies gather around the person. It took a moment, but I was soon parsing an image of them in my head. It was difficult to tell if they were male or female through my bugs. What was easy to make out was their garb, loose and feathered as it was. They were dressed entirely in black, save for the stark white bird mask reminding me of the ones plague doctors wore in the dark ages.

A cape?

Possibly, I had met or heard of several so far. Doll, Paleblood, Iosefka the tinker, the one that made the Healing Church. Their costume concealed their arms and I couldn't see any weapons of them. Making contact could be a bad decision if they shared the deposition of everyone else around here, but that was a chance I was leaning towards taking.

Hopefully they would understand me.

I used bugs to map out a route to the cape, which took me through a rickety attic with some bodies strung up with chains and a lethal drop underneath. There were a few more men downstairs, some of which had been malformed to the point that I wasn't sure if they classified as human anymore. The notion to ponder on the implications came second to making contact with the cape, I stepped onto the roof behind them.

I was ignored, but I was noticed. Small bugs that I had landed on their costume noticed how they stiffened ever so slightly and how their head twitched in my direction. They were facing away, so the movement in the mask wasn't noticed by my eyes.

It was harder to keep that from my bugs though.

When they noticed me I paused, unsure if it was indicative of hostile intent. They didn't reach for a weapon, so I resumed my approach and stopped when I was standing next to them. The cape was looking out over Yharnam, or what little of it could be seen from this vantage point. They weren't saying anything. I wondered if I should initiate conversation and hesitated.

I opened my mouth.

"Oh, a hunter, are ya?" She said, saying 'hoonter' more than 'hunter' and cutting me off without looking at me.

"_Yes._" I said after some hesitation. With what Gehrman and Doll had been telling me, coupled with the clothes the little ones had given me, it seemed pointless to argue the point.

"And an outsider." She observed. "What a mess you've been caught up in. And tonight, of all nights." She turned her head towards mine. "Here, to welcome the new hunter."

Her clothes ruffled as she extended an arm towards me, not raising it higher than her waist.

"_So you're a hunter as well?_" I asked, glancing down at her hand but not making out what she was holding.

"Take it." She insisted. "You'll find great use for this, I fear."

I grumbled to myself. She wasn't understanding me. The hope that had risen from recognising a cape was dashed, taking part of what was left of me with it. I took what was offered, trying to reach with my stump before realising that was fruitless, then accepting it with the hand that remained.

She was eyeing my stump. "You're in quite the predicament. Recent, is that one?" She looked back to Yharnam, taking a moment to herself.

"_It is._" I answered, inspecting the scraps of parchment she'd given me. They were frayed and there was a symbol burned onto each of the pieces of parchment. A vertical line with a dot at the bottom, and with two lines extending down from a third of the way up the line, then bending at a right angle to point at the dot as well.

It wasn't the first time I'd seen this symbol, _except it was_.

How?

When?

Why did I know what to do with it?

I opened my mouth to give voice to my questions.

"Prepare yourself for the worst." The woman wearing feathers told me gravely, cutting me off again. I shut my mouth indignantly. "There are _no humans _left. They're all _flesh hungry_ beasts, now."

That just gave me more questions. No humans? What about the mob by the beast pyre? They could speak, they accused me of being a beast and yelled that it was all my fault every chance they got. They walked, breathed, communicated with one another. They had one hell of an 'us vs Taylor' mentality, but that didn't degrade them to the level of beasts.

What about the people hiding indoors?

Was the Yharnam madness literally turning people into beasts? Was it the blood?

"_That's not right._" I told them. "_I admit that there are malformed people, but not everyone is a beast._"

"Still lingering about?" She turned her head back to me, making the movement in such a way that she might have actually been a bird.

"_Until you answer my questions, yeah."_

"What's wrong?" She asked, making me sigh. "A hunter, unnerved by a few beasts? Heh heh… no matter." She swept her arms back, making her feathered cloak billow dramatically. "Without fear in our hearts, we're little different from the beasts themselves."

This was so damn frustrating, not being able to communicate. I needed to make a connection with someone, and it was crazy to think that this person was the one I had felt the strongest connection to.

Iosefka was altruistic like I tried to be, and kind of understood me when I talked, but now she unnerved the crap out of me. Gilbert was sick and barely understood me even when I was playing charades. I disagreed with Gherman at a fundamental level, and Doll was… There was something off about her. I had classified her as a Case 53, but that depended on Cauldron being involved.

Yharnam seemed a bit too messed up for even them.

This person was experienced, someone who had risen to the call to help those in need. Where we differed was that I had risen to the call by rescuing a drugged little girl who had been cursed with a valuable power, while they had taken to killing beasts. Even if our perspectives on the matter differed, I could respect that she had taken action. That she did what she had to even if it wasn't necessarily the right thing.

It clearly weighed on her as much as it did on me.

I tapped her on the shoulder and pointed at myself. "_Taylor Hebert._"

She gave me a long and calculating look. After a few moments she turned bodily to face me and placed a hand over her breast. "Call me Eileen, _Taylor_. Eileen the Crow."

"_Eileen,_" I repeated, making her shudder. "_The Crow._" I let it roll off my tongue, feeling a degree of nostalgia from speaking the title. It was a cape name. Should I have given her mine?

"As I once dreamed…" She uttered under her breath. I only heard her say it because I had bugs being nosy from her costume.

I opened my mouth to tell her my cape name.

She cut me off again. "What are you still doing here? Enough trembling in your boots. A hunter must hunt."

My mouth clicked shut. That was a very annoying habit Eileen had.


	8. 1 Corruption 8

I didn't shove off just because Eileen told me to. What I did do was try and get her to tell me about the parchment she gave me, getting nowhere until I remembered I had ink and a quill. She gave me a curious look as I set up the inkwell on the floor next to her and scratched out a sentence. It became understanding when I shoved the message in her face and she read it.

_What are these?_

"That's the mark of a hunter." Eileen told me. "It's etched into all our minds, the mark only serves as a reminder. It lets one envision the rune with clarity and awaken. It's of no use to me anymore."

That confirmed we were speaking the same language. Or trying to. I quickly started writing out more questions.

_Why?_

"For the hunt." Eileen told me, as if that was the most obvious thing.

I sighed and moved on to other things.

_Do you know of Earth Bet?_

"Is this where you're from?" Eileen asked. I nodded. "I haven't heard of it. It must be very far away for that to be so."

Confirmation of what I already knew, but it didn't hurt to ask.

_Are you a cape?_

"No, I should think that I am not a garment."

I rolled my eyes and amended it to 'parahuman', which got a similar but more serious response. It was a little disappointing that I hadn't met someone with powers, but I pushed past it and wrote my next question.

_Flesh hungry beasts?_

"Are you daft?" Eileen asked pointedly. I shrugged and stared, trying to get her to answer. Eileen gave a short sigh, like she was hiding how exasperated that made her, but couldn't conceal it entirely. "This night takes its toll on the humans brave or stupid enough to wander the streets. Their minds are gone. Only bloodlust remains."

_Why?_

"Why do we breathe?" Eileen rebuked. "Some things are unexplainable. Our job is to end them before they end us."

Well, breathing was actually the method by which the human body supplied itself with oxygen, which was necessary to maintain bodily functions. But if science hadn't caught up, it hadn't caught up. Eileen's point had been made regardless.

_Bridge Beast._

"What do you mean?" Eileen asked. I pointed up at the bridge and mimed something big. Then I felt stupid, so I stopped. "Oh, that thing? Is that your quarry?"

I thought about it, then shook my head.

"You don't seem sure."

I wrote down: _It killed me._

"Then I should think it is."

I rolled my eyes again. _Advice?_

"Don't let it kill you again." Eileen said, making me want to roll my eyes a third time. "Kill it before it gets the chance."

I went to write more but found I was out of parchment. The fact that I was using a quill and ink, on top of using my non-dominant hand meant my handwriting was atrocious for someone whose mother was an English teacher. That the scraps of parchment were as small as they were just meant I ran out more quickly.

I opened my mouth to say goodbye.

Eileen cut me off. "I should think you still have dreams? Tell the little doll I said hello." The words were dismissive, and she turned her head back to overlooking Yharnam. Or what she could from this low position.

That she knew about Doll gave me so many more questions, but I gave up asking them for now. It was pointless and so damn _frustrating_. The marks went next to the other reminder that I was carrying around and I moved on after saying farewell.

Eileen had shivered when I did.

Soon I was crouched in the rafters and looking down at the situation below me. My range covered the majority of the building, but that was it. Even that small amount of coverage told me a lot, however. The number of bugs tripled as my swarm moved down.

Starting at the bottom was a canal that split the room in two, and there were two floor between that and the rafters where I was crouched. Wrecked boats lay in the canal and I looked at them, thinking of home while my bugs told me the rest.

The first floor was for storage and spanned either side of the canal. Several barrels held good that had long since gone bad, and there were several dog like creatures hiding under the storage areas. I coalesced some bugs near one and got a better view.

It was a rat, but swollen to a size I hadn't ever seen in a rat before. The rat was easily twice the size of the dogs I had put down, and had several patches where fur had ceased to grow, revealing swollen patches of skin that stuck further out than the fur did. Its eyes had grown so much that they looked like bubbles ready to burst.

The rat leaped at the bug cloud and I let the bugs scatter.

Above that was a platform that ringed the room. There was another man with a top hat and a gun watching over the room, but hadn't looked up and therefore hadn't seen me. He was the only human looking one, there were three other humanoids in my range.

Bugs coalesced near them and I observed the things. They were humanoid, but not human, and each was different. I felt my vigor in opposing Eileen's take on the hunt start to slip.

The beasts wore clothes and held torches, two person saws, or metal poles that looked like it had been ripped from the ground. Each was at least seven feet tall, with arms and legs that had grown to twice their natural length. Some had slightly longer arms, others had more misshapen heads or torsos, each walked with a hunch and was covered in coarse fur.

They even had fleas.

Those fleas were more swollen than the fleas on the dogs. I would have had the fleas start biting to agitate the transformed men, but I was wary of doing so. Last time when the fleas tasted blood, I had started craving it. With Iosefka's blood vial in my belt I didn't want that temptation.

Finally, in the attic space with me were two chained up bodies hanging from the ceiling. One had a weapon reminiscent of my saw cleaver tied to the body as it dangled, swinging gently. The other had expired clutching two red rocks close to their chest.

There was a problem with all that which I realised quite belatedly.

_How do I get down?_

The way I had entered wasn't accessible to me, given that I had dropped down from a windowsill. There weren't any stairs, ladders, or elevators for me to use. It looked like even dropping to the nearest floor would take out my legs.

There was an old, rickety crane that looked easily accessible from above. If I dropped down on that, it would be like halving the fall distance, but doing it twice. That is, _if_ I could get a proper footing on it. _If_ I tried and _if_ I failed, I would break my legs anyway, or fall to my death since the crane was on the edge of the canal.

This was all moot. The solution was to drop down the full way to the next floor, then immediately take a blood vial. Not Iosefka's, though I would want to. Any would do and I knew from the tinker that blood could heal broken bones. The problem then was _where to land?_

The four of them had pretty good coverage of the warehouse, and while I was confident that my bugs could incapacitate top hat, I wasn't so sure about the others. My take on things was that they were transforming into beasts, and beasts had this nasty habit of ignoring my bugs when they were _gouging their eyes out_. Even disregarding top hat, the three remaining beast-men still had a pretty good patrol of the place.

I picked a spot and waited until there was a good distance between there and the nearest patrolling beast-man, then sicced my bugs on the three within range. The furthest beast-man had left my range by the time I started moving.

Top hat started screaming while the other two started killing my bugs en mass by slamming themselves against the wall and generally throwing their claws all around themselves. I dropped and held my tongue against the inevitable scream when both my legs broke with a sickening crack.

It was a near thing.

I may as well have not bothered, since my bugs told me that the two beast men snapped their heads in my direction when my bones audibly snapped. Like the beasts, they ignored the bugs as soon as they sensed larger prey and started moving in my direction. They weren't moving as quickly as the beast in the clinic or the beasts on the bridge had, but they were approaching.

That was bad, I still had two broken legs to deal with.

Setting the bones was a painful experience, but I had been through worse and told myself that this time things would get better in a moment. I knew it could, so it helped. This time when the urge to yell in pain arrived, I let it do its thing. The bugs attacked more aggressively when I did.

Once the bones were set, I picked a blood vial, almost taking Iosefka's, and jammed it into my thigh. A rush akin to falling down the stairs overtook me as that rustic taste appeared in the back of my throat. There were two beasts approaching to kill me. _That's one more than that time._

I giggled. A beast-man roared. _They're still men, kind of._ I reminded myself as the euphoria reached its peak and my legs returned to their functioning selves. The bones fused the way they were meant to be, and were as healthy as the day I was born.

Both beast-men had picked up speed when they heard me giggling. I needed to do something about that habit.

The first reached me and slammed down with a farming tool, but I had regained my senses and was already moving. I was quickly on my feet and aiming my gun at the other one who was rearing back with a torch in hand.

I pulled the trigger as his muscles tensed and shot him the shoulder, throwing him off balance and letting me get behind him.

"_Can you talk?_" I demanded. "_Please tell me you can talk._"

I got a roar from the one that hadn't been shot. The other was turning towards me with murder in their eyes.

"_I won't kill you if you can talk._" They would be more beast than man if they couldn't talk. That's what I was telling myself.

Doll had told me that I took the echoes of the ones I killed, giving me reason to justify killing them. I didn't want that to be enough, but it was looking like I didn't have a choice. The off balance beast finished recovering as my bugs finished loading my second to last bullet into my gun. I directed part of the swarm to start confiscating bullets from top hat as it roared.

Beast, then. I was going to kill these two.

_Three._ I reminded myself. The third one had walked back into my range, and had deviated from its route. It had heard the commotion and was approaching from behind me. If I didn't do anything, it would be able to pincer me with these two. That wouldn't do.

Both beasts attacked simultaneously, and I evaded backwards, then strafed towards the wall. The one that was now closer to me kept up its assault, forcing me to keep dodging. I kept my distance from that one as I tried to make my way around them again, succeeding in that, but letting the other beast get close and prepare to attack.

I shot him before he even pulled his arm back and dropped the gun, pulling on the handle of the saw cleaver and ripping into him while the other beast recovered their breath. It was a short lived assault, and I backed off when a torch hit my shoulder. The burning of the fire being icing on the cake, since the torch itself had been swung so violently.

It winded me, and I was unable to properly dodge the next two attacks, getting tagged on my waist and stump. I dropped the saw cleaver and scrambled with my blood vials, pulling a random one and jabbing it in. I realised too late that I hadn't checked if it was Iosefka's, but the worry was for nothing since the infusion was weaker than it would be with the orange blood vial.

The rush actually helped me focus on dodging the attacks of these two beasts. I was pulling them around the room, trying to lengthen the amount of time before the third one caught up to us. At the same time I was splitting bugs from the assault on the three of them to carry my weapons with me. They couldn't move as quickly as we were when I was dodging directly backwards, so I was zig-zagging in a desperate gambit for time.

My gun caught up to me first with it's last bullet already loaded. I swept it up when the beast-men gave me a moment to catch my breath. I was starting to figure out their movements through my bugs. Their fleas were very helpful to that end.

I kept evading until one had finished stringing attacks together for the time being, and the other was just winding down. I shot the second one, putting it off balance. Then, like I had with the beast on the bridge, I spun the gun in my hand and pistolwhipped them in the temple. I tried to time it so the beast would fall down the canal when I hit him, and for a moment it seemed like he wasn't going to.

Then one of his clawed hands went to his head as his knees failed him and he toppled over the ledge. My bugs watched as he landed head first.

_One down._ I faced the second beast and holstered my gun. It howled and kept swinging, heedless of his dead friend. Now that I only had one beast to dodge, I was able to evade him easily. When he stopped to catch his breath, I picked up my saw cleaver again and prepared to strike the next time he tired from attacking. Normally it as three or four consecutive strikes, sometimes followed by him slamming his farming equipment into the floor five or more times to round it out, followed by a single second where he stood up and caught his breath.

I didn't get the chance, the other beast caught up before I could try because _of course_ he did. Considering what happened last time, I wasn't about to try going melee with the two of them and started backing up again, having my bugs bite with abandon, but holding back the fleas because they got more into it than the rest. My bugs had confiscated two bullets off of top hat, I started maneuvering towards them and dropped my gun so the bugs would have better access to it.

Then I sprinted around the room, causing the beasts to howl and chase after me. I made sure to jump over top hat, but the beasts had no such reservations. Top hat was scrambling desperately, trying to get the bugs off. One of his maddened struggles caught one of the beasts and caused him to trip.

The beast howled and slammed his farming tool into the ground five or six times. Top hat was no more.

With that distraction, I was able to collect my newly loaded gun and prepare for the beasts approaching me. They had split up, so they were moving to pincer me again. I moved towards the closer one and instigated a fight early.

This time I didn't waste time dodging. I shot him off balance, despite going for a killing headshot, then pistolwhipped him the same way I did his friend. After delivering the blow, I dropped the gun and slashed at him with the saw cleaver. Blood spattered on my face as he fell. I wiped it away to find he hadn't fallen like his friend, so I kicked him over the edge and checked with my bugs to make sure he was down.

He was. I made his fleas jump away from the spreading puddle of blood.

That left one beast in the fight. The one that killed top hat.

The man-beast approached and I shot him when he started winding up. He took the bullet, but didn't stagger. It glared at me with a low growl. Was this one tougher, or had he learned to expect the bullet? That was a first for beasts. Unfortunately, that meant I had to go at him with the saw cleaver. I was out of bullets again, so I holstered the gun.

Saw cleaver out, I evaded and waited for an opening, taking the first one I saw. I slashed him once, twice, then dodged back in time to get out of the way of his counterattack. I caught my breath, waited for another opening, and repeated.

This time I got greedy and went for a third attack, and caught a sharp steel pole in my thigh for my trouble. I almost dodged back, but sensed an opening by virtue of bug sense as he reeled back for a bigger strike. I leaped forward, ignoring my leg's protests, and swung the saw cleaver overhead into his chest. Blood sprayed back on me as the serrated blade sunk in. More left the beast as I dragged it back out.

The beast shoved me away with a claw, scratching at my face and making me bleed from the cheek. I considered using a blood vial, but wasn't feeling enough pain. There was another opening which I used to tackle the beast. It was tired and weakened, so I was able to take it to the ground and found myself straddling the thing. It tried to push me off.

I smashed its face in with the saw cleaver and it stopped trying. There was silence as I made sure it was dead. Eventually I was satisfied that it was.

Panting, I rolled off the beast. Moving _away_ from the drop into the canal.

I touched a finger to my cheek and looked at it, seeing blood. _Of course_ it was covered in blood. That fight had made me bleed seven ways to Sunday, but the motion made me pause.

My cheek hadn't hurt.

Moreover, my thigh didn't hurt.

I hadn't healed with blood, why didn't they hurt? I sat up and winced. _There it was, _the pain I was expecting. The hole in my thigh had partially closed up, but not completely. Was this a residual effect of the blood? If it was, awesome, I'll take that Brute rating. But I didn't know the whole story. Blood usually restored me to perfect health. That it was acting this way was… unnerving.

I jabbed a blood vial in there and brought it back to working order. There were as many full blood vials as there were empty ones on my belt now, I was going through these things fast.

Once healed, I stood up and brushed myself off. Then smirked and repeated the motions Eileen had done, making my cape and cloak billow dramatically. It was lopsided, given my stump, but it helped.

Then I looted the place, finding several blood vials and recovering the weapon and two rocks that I noticed earlier. Retrieving them by using my bugs to chew away at the support of the chains until they fell and collecting them personally. The rats acted like the beasts of the bridge did, and were easy to put down. Shortly I had everything the warehouse had to offer.

I deigned not to use the new weapon. It was similar to the saw cleaver in that it was a saw spear. If anything, it was even more unwieldy than the cleaver. It was left behind.

Then I moved on. There were more beasts to hunt.

~Drip~Drip~

I blinded the statue toting brute and climbed the ladder while he charged through the metal fence, over the ledge, and plummeted into the depths below. That hadn't been what I intended for him, but there wasn't anything I could do about that now. It was either he charged at me, or he charged randomly, then eventually at the ledge.

Idly, I wondered if that counted as me killing him for the purposes of Doll's echoes.

It was a meaningful distraction that I was grateful for, since I was terrible at climbing ladders now. The musings only distracted me for half the climb, though. Then I was back to being bitter about the whole thing.

I made it to the top, though. One small victory for Taylor Hebert.

Immediately, I glanced at the lit window to my right. My bugs had informed me that someone was living here long before I could see it myself, and I fully intended to at least knock. Also in front of me was a lever that presumably opened the adjacent gate. It lead back to the dried up water fountain, which was news to me. I had looped back on myself.

Since I didn't want to open the path to the brute I knew was down there, I moved to the window first and knocked. I waited. There was movement within.

"Who… are you?" A young and nervous girl asked, making my heart just… melt. She was all alone. I couldn't sense anyone else in the house with my bugs.

"_I'm Taylor._" I told her distractedly. She sounded familiar, but I couldn't place it.

"What?" The girl sounded confused.

"_Where are your parents?_" I asked, hopeful that she might understand me.

Her next words dashed that hope. "I- don't know your voice, but I know that smell…" She said, prompting me to take a whiff of myself. I just smelled blood. Blood and gunpowder. "Are you a hunter?"

_At this point…_ I thought dejectedly, "_Yes._"

"Then please, will you look for my mum? Daddy never came back from the hunt, and she went to find him, but now she's gone, too…" There was a moment where I didn't know what to say. "I'm all alone… and scared…"

My heart melted all over again.


	9. 1 Corruption 9

"_I'll help you._" I told the little girl. There wasn't any question about that. I didn't even hesitate.

"Really?" She asked, hopeful. _Did she just understand me?_ "Oh, thank you! My m-mum wears a red jeweled brooch. It's so big and… and beautiful. You won't miss it."

Just how young was this child? She had to search for the word 'beautiful'. Her voice was quivering and forced, but had eased up since I promised to help. It reminded me of the state I was in after mom died, when I had gone to Emma's for her help dealing with that.

That hadn't ended well. Damnit, my heart.

"Oh, I mustn't forget." The girl unclasped the latch of the window and opened it a fraction. Her tiny hand passed something through the gap. "If you find my mum, give her this music box… It plays one of daddy's favourite songs."

I accepted the music box and peered through to see the girl. She was so small and delicate. Cute dress, blond hair, and a pretty face with a mouth that was slightly too wide. There was that familiar feeling again.

The little girl kept talking through the open window. "And when daddy forgets us we play it for him so he remembers. Mum's so silly, running off without it!"

Chatterbox, too. Was she a pretty version of my childhood self? I was staring now, and the little girl's hopeful expression was starting to fall.

"What's wrong?" She asked.

"_Nothing._" I lied.

The little girl filled the ensuing quiet. "I don't know what you're saying, but thank you, Miss Hunter."

A chilling sensation running up my spine, I backed away from the window and the little girl awkwardly pulled the window closed. She had to jump to reach the window when it was open, and then she had to jump again when the window didn't properly close. I looked at the music box in my hand.

Curiosity got the better of me and I sat cross legged. Propping the box between my stump and my knee, I turned the lever with my hand and let it spin. Music started playing, but it was muffled. I opened the box and the notes became clear.

It was a haunting melody…

Then the music stopped. I moved to put the box away, but stopped. There was writing on the inside of the lid, faded and worn, but still legible in some places. I peered closer and my world was rocked all over again as I made out two names.

_Viola Hebert and Gascoigne... _Gascoigne's last name was illegible.

Fucking what?

~Drip~Drip~

I threw myself into exploring Yharnam and killing the beasts I came across. I found more red rocks and put them in a bag since they were small and not all that heavy. Each time I found someone with a gun I confiscated all their bullets. When I found myself in an aqueduct with more oversized rats and beast-men, I killed them all.

The whole time I kept an eye and several bugs out for a woman with a red jeweled brooch.

No dice, so far.

Bullets were a problem, and I was constantly running out. Eventually I found a dead hunter in that aqueduct, dressed almost exactly the same way I was. He had a tool that I could only assume was one of the ones Gehrman had referred to in our brief interaction. One of the lost tools.

It had the needle of a blood vial, but that was the only similarity it had. Instead of a place to insert vials, there was a mold in the shape of a bullet. Since I knew how the blood vials worked, I used this the same way, jabbing it into my leg and immediately feeling my vitality drain. My blood was sucked out by the tool and hardened in the mold until it had a metallic sheen to it. It only took a split second.

I popped it out and inspected the bullet. It was red instead of silver, had a circular symbol on the side, and had a cold, almost metallic feel to it. I loaded it and shot the wall to find that the bullet was just as effective as quicksilver ones. So I made as many as possible, which was five. There were five unique runes ringing the tool that lit up faintly to show how many blood bullets it had made and matched the ones on the bullets.

They illuminated in a counterclockwise order, even when the previous bullet had been fired and the symbol was faded. If I tried to make a sixth bullet, the first lost its shape and became a puddle of blood. It was good tinker tech, in all honesty. Simple. Solving a problem. I wasn't ever going to run out of bullets now. All I needed was a blood vial to top myself off with after stocking up.

Another thing I noticed in my wanderings was that the beasts I had killed on the bridge had returned to life. Their bodies were gone and new beasts had replaced them, or they simply reanimated. I couldn't tell, since the blood that had been spilled from our fight had been cleaned up.

I killed them again and resolved to ask Doll about that the next time I saw her.

Then I went back to killing beasts. As much as I wanted to pressure the little girl with questions, I dreaded the answers. I was good at multitasking, so it was difficult to keep the thoughts at bay.

The difference between Earth Aleph and Earth Bet was Scion appearing way back in the eighties. Up until that point, both histories were the same. Earth Yharm was clearly another earth, given how different everything was. The divergence point must have happened earlier in history and resulted in stagnating technology, since everything here was borderline medieval in some respects, but quite advanced in others.

Mostly blood ministration, since blood vials were so damn widespread. I had topped up my stock during my explorations and was having to walk past spare vials now.

Things were just too different for me to have stumbled onto any extended family, so why had I run into my own last name? It didn't fit in this world. And why had the person with my name been the mother of a child that reminded me of me?

_Taylor._ _Stop. _

_The only one who might have answers right now is Viola. Worrying about it isn't going to help._

_Just focus on the hunt for now. Figure out how to kill the bloodthirsty beasts without getting anyone that can still speak killed._

Yeah. I'll do that.

I killed many, many beasts.

My exploration came to an end by accident more than it was me deciding I had killed enough beasts. I opened a gate while ignoring the distracted torch wielding Yharnamite behind me, and found myself on a familiar ledge with a view of Cathedral Ward. Looking off to the side gave me a view of the Bridge Beast, who was resting now, lying down where I couldn't see it. I only knew it was there because of the purple mist drifting up over the stone railing.

I briefly considered addressing Gilbert, but didn't have anything new to say to him, not that he could understand me anyway.

The little ones by the lantern turned as I approached and knelt down next to them. One reached out and I let them grasp my hand. The little one looked at me with a vacant expression as my body was pulled apart.

~Drip~Drip~

"Welcome home, Good Hunter." Doll said before I was able to properly get my bearings.

I had appeared standing this time, and moved to get up without realising I didn't need to. "_Doll._" I responded distractedly.

"I can sense echoes coursing through you. You were gone for a long while, did you slay a great beast?"

"_I slew a great number of beasts._" I corrected. "_I think the beastly scourge Gehrman was talking about is transforming Yharnam. There were people who looked more- __**were**_ _more beast than man._"

"The other hunters said as much when they came through this dream." Doll said, wistfully turning her head to look at a nearby gravestone.

"_When I was out, I met Eileen._" I told Doll. "_She said to say hello._"

"Ah…" Doll looked in the other direction at another grave. I looked, but couldn't tell which one it was. "She is still alive. That is… reassuring to hear."

"_So._" I said suddenly, having never been that good at small talk. I would have clapped my hands if I had two of them. "_The echoes. How does this work?_"

"Very well," Doll gave me her full attention. "Let the blood echoes become your strength. Let me stand close. Now shut your eyes."

She took a step towards me and reached for my hand. I let her take it and she knelt on one knee before me. Doll held her hands around mine in the same way she had before, and a silver orb appeared in the palm of my hand. This time there was a soft ethereal sound that emitted from the orb, and faint, pale mist appeared from nothing around it, only to be drawn to the orb and be absorbed on contact.

"Please, Taylor, shut your eyes so I may focus on the echoes within you."

It was tough because the silver orb demanded so much attention. Doll's insistence did help, though. When I closed my eyes, there was no residual light making its way past my eyelids like there usually would be. I was in a void.

"Good Hunter, the echoes of an individual can be… refined in six ways. But in choosing one method of using an echo, the echo becomes incapable of being used for the others."

"_What are they?_" I asked.

"An echo may resound throughout your body, making it tougher and more durable. It may instead increase your stamina if you choose for it to. The echoes of a creature could add their strength to your own, or impart their skill to further enhance yours."

Strength and skill were self explanatory, and quite tempting. The options of increasing my, what, sturdiness? Was very tempting as well. Endurance was always useful to have.

Doll continued, "I may also have your echoes impart their… pedigree, this way."

"_What?_"

"Hunters have told me that the quality of their blood has been directly related to the effectiveness of certain weapons. The quality of blood is determined by the… quality of one's heritage. Most are unremarkable, but each echo has a unique aspect of blood that could be added to yours."

"_What kinds of weapons?_" I asked.

"Most of them spoke of this in reference to their firearms." Doll explained. "Some of them observed other hunters using blades that had a... similar effect."

"_Right…_" That didn't really explain anything. Likely tinkers being fucking tinkers.

"Finally, I may convince the echoes to impart their aptitude for the arcane." Doll finished the lecture. "You have many blood echoes within you, Taylor. You could choose to have your echoes improve you in a diverse way if that is what you wish."

"_Before that, what did you mean by 'arcane'?_" Doll's explanation didn't quite make sense.

"Hmm…" Doll pondered. "Perhaps it is a measure of how well one utilises that which is more than mundane. I must say, good hunter, you have quite high aptitude for it already."

_Thanks, passenger._ I thought. More than mundane? Yeah, that was my passenger.

"_Does skill make me faster?_" I asked out loud. With how fast some beasts could move, extra speed would be useful.

"Normally, I would answer yes." Doll said. "But I feel that you are asking something different to what the other hunters would." There was a moment of pondering. "If it must be measured, I would say it is more the ability to know how effective a more delicate weapon would be in the hunt, and having the ability to use it well."

"_So it wouldn't make me fast. What about endurance? Stamina._"

"That would help you continue at your pace for longer."

Yeah, I figured that. So what to do with this? Blood pedigree and arcane aptitude were out. Pedigree because the bullets did plenty as is. Aptitude because I had no ways of utilising the arcane beyond what I already had. Also, I doubted having echoes of beasts impart their arcane knowledge would help me restore my power to its previous capabilities.

More stamina wasn't really necessary. I hadn't felt any desire to fall to my knees by the end of my hunt, my stamina was fucking _great_. That was was put down to years of jogging every day. And skill… I don't know, it wasn't really appealing to me. It sounded good, but given that the echoes were of bloodthirsty and rampaging beasts… I wasn't sure I wanted it.

That left, "_Strengthen my body and my, uh… strength._" I decided.

"Very well." The doll said, and the ethereal sound reached a crescendo.

A hundred visions invaded the void. Sights of working long hours. Sounds of hammering. The feeling of exhaustion. How a leg was torn open and started to heal itself. The time I tore my way out of my cage. When I was blinded by bugs. The sensation of plummeting. How I got shot by a tall, thin woman and shortly fell headfirst to the stone floor below.

There were hundreds. At least thirty of them were a lot like that last one. One for each beast I killed.

My breath caught, seeing it all.

"Taylor..." Doll said, insistent, stopping the visions. My eyes snapped open and I stared wide eyed at Doll, who was still kneeling in front of me. The serenity that came from her power was lingering despite the orb being gone, probably because of whatever Doll had done with the echoes.

"Your arm." Doll said in reverence.

I looked.

Where the cloth should have fallen limply at my side, it was instead wrapped around something. A limb. _My arm._ I raised my arm in front of me and inspected it.

It wasn't my arm.

What it was was an imitation of what once was. Pale white lines outlined what would have been the borders of a slender limb, and purple mist like what drifted from the eyes of the Bridge Beast filled the space between, but it was transparent. There were particles in the phantom limb that reminded me of constellations, staying in roughly the same space despite the drifting mist.

I tried to twitch my lost fingers and they moved. I tried to clench my lost fist and the fist clenched.

Doll was standing now. I reached forwards with the hand and it moved, but the lines had frayed and the mist was starting to fade. I tried to touch Dolls face with the hand and it dissipated, the constellation scattering in a phantom wind. I stared at where the fingers had made contact with Doll.

I had felt it, the sensation of touching something hard. Wooden. I had touched Doll with a hand that shouldn't have existed.

Everything that happened made a part of me want to scream. I quickly shot that part and put her in the coffin with the one that cried. Doll's serenity had stopped and the ethereal sound had ceased, allowing me to think- or try to think straight. This was crazy, but not on a level comparable to what Scion had made. What was happening here was crazy on a much smaller scale, but in a way that was specifically trying to wear me down.

And all of this was just in preparation to kill the Earth Yharm equivalent of an Endbringer.

Alone.

I let out a sigh.

"_Thank you, Doll._" I said, unsure if I meant it.

"You were beautiful." Doll told me.

There were a lot of snappy responses that tried and failed to reach the surface. The experience reminded me of what had been, it had given me something like hope and then torn it away. The Taylor that wanted to cry was banging on the lid of her coffin. She wanted to get out.

If she did, I wasn't sure if I could shoot her again.

I walked away from Doll and went to the gate leading to the lower garden. The way I had quickly dismissed this place when… I wasn't sure how long ago… It seemed so stupid now. I really needed some time to sort through all this. Everything had just been so rapidly building, one after another. No rest, just question after question. Trauma after trauma.

Death after death.

The edges of _Taylor_ were officially broken and blurred again. Before, when Amy had pulled down the walls between my passenger and I, the same barriers that were blurring now, it had been almost solicited from both sides. We worked together, knew each other, and it worked until it didn't. It had been harmony within a hurricane of chaos.

Now, it was the lives of beasts that echoed within me. They imparted their gifts in much the same way as my passenger. Almost to test it, but really to work out some frustration, I gripped the bars of the gate, _hard_. My hand immediately lost all its colour as I strained and the bars dug into my fingers and hand, but I wasn't gripping as hard as I could.

I put more strength into my hand and blood started running down the metal bar. That wasn't my full strength either. An echo of me pulling iron bars off of a window to reach the person inside invaded my mind's eye. I stopped. That wasn't me. I had left the bars up and promised to find a young girl's mom.

My hand had vertical red lines where my skin had broken. I let them bleed.

I stayed like that for a while.

Somewhere along the way _Taylor _escaped her coffin and cried for the lives we lost...

The pain we felt…

The ones we hadn't been able to help…

Our friends… The ones that were left...

And whatever it was that we were becoming.

The other _Taylor_ came out of the coffin as well after a bit…

She joined in and we all screamed at the sky.


	10. 1 Corruption 10

Before I left the Hunter's Dream I went looking for Gehrman and found him snoring away in the upper garden. How a man could sleep inside a dream, I wasn't totally sure, but I let him be. I didn't like him, anyway, and I didn't _really_ want to talk to him.

I took stock of the workshop before I left, and ended up asking Doll how I was supposed to use some of the stuff I found. It turned out the red rocks that so many corpses had been holding onto in their final moments were actually called bloodstones. Coagulated blood that had been refined down to a hardened substance.

Supposedly, it could be used to enhance my saw cleaver, but Doll didn't know the process and I wasn't about to wake the old man. My weapon was cutting just fine, thank you very much. An inspection of the other things in the workshop told me that Gehrman hadn't been lying when he said that most of the tools had gone missing.

There were empty drawers in the workbench, hooks that didn't hold anything, and the altar before the statue had an indent showing where a tool had once been placed. There was what looked like a gnarled staff hung up, and a closer look revealed a hinge in the middle. There was supposed to be something that was attached to one end, but it was missing. Doll told me what she could, but the only one she was able to name for sure was the one on the altar. The Caryll Rune workshop tool.

She said it stood out to her because it was the only tool that didn't rely on blood. Which, fair, a lot of things around here did.

The rune tool would apparently help me in accessing and etching such runes into my mind, which I was dubiously interested in. I had no intention of using it for its intended purpose at the moment. The reason I was interested was because of the access it supposedly lent, which I could possibly use to find out more about the mark of a hunter Eileen had told me about.

We had no idea where it was, and no clue as to where to look, however. Plans for the rune tool were put on hold for the time being.

I also found a note discarded in the corner of the workshop. Only notable by virtue of a little one holding it up. Curiously, I approached and read, "_To escape this dreadful hunter's dream, halt the source of the spreading scourge of beasts, lest the night carry on forever._"

When I took the note, the little one vanished into the floor, leaving me to wonder what it meant. The message lined up with what Gehrman had told me, but added a detail the old man had forgotten to mention. If I stopped the scourge, I could escape the dream.

Maybe he thought I was like any other hunter from Yharnam, happy to kill a few beasts and feel good about it, and that's why he hadn't told me of the way out. He was way off base with that assumption, of course.

The note made me start looking at the book titles in the workshop. There was a lot of stuff on beasts, blood, and tool maintenance. But the one that stood out was sitting on the top of a pile of books that were too numerous for a place on a desk, notable for being literally the only tome not related to blood or killing. Its title was "How to Pick Up Fair Maidens".

I had to suppress a snort when I flicked through the first few pages. The opening chapter was a message to the reader, asking if the reader had any of the many problems suitors had when starting out as a paramour. Then finishing with wild promises like, "_You'll sweep the maiden off her feet and her father will wipe a tear from his eye as you carry your maiden off into the sunset._", "_You will be able to tell if the maiden is interested in you within minutes of meeting them. If she isn't, you'll be able to make her interested with your impressive charisma._", and "_If you follow my advice, there is no maiden that will be able to resist your irresistible charms._"

The author's advice was insanely deluded, of course. None, if any of it sounded like it even took 'the maiden's' feelings into consideration, but I didn't actually get through that much. Reading the book made me wonder if I would be considered a maiden by the author's standards, prompting more snickers because I most certainly did not after Brian.

Then I became melancholic, so I moved on.

Of course, before I did any of that, I put two bullets into the crying and screaming Taylors and put them back in their coffin. Then I chained it shut, padlocked the chain, and threw the coffin off the ledge of the Hunter's Dream before throwing the key off the other side. It wouldn't do to let them spontaneously break out and have me start blubbering when I was fighting an Endbringer

That all done, it was time to try and kill the Bridge Beast.

~Drip~Drip~

As I psyched myself up for the fight, I stood at the ledge by Gilbert's and watched the thing. It wasn't on the bridge anymore, having leaped back over the wall to Cathedral Ward and ripped something big to shreds. I didn't have a good grasp on how vicious the Bridge Beast was before it gained my blood echoes, but looking at it move now was terrifying.

A long time ago, Legend had called Leviathan the middle child of the Endbringers when it attacked Brockton Bay. Not as strong as Behemoth, and not as crafty as the Simurgh, but possessing other talents. I had come to find that speed was one of them. Looking at how the Bridge Beast was moving now, it almost compared.

The observation didn't exactly do wonders for my morale, but I had spent _years_ preparing for fights against things like that. Now that Doll had given me an inherent brute rating to go alongside the one from the blood vials, I just might last more than one attack.

I put a stop to my wishful thinking by moving, brushing past Gilbert's window and taking a shortcut to the bridge. The fact that the two beasts on the bridge were alive again registered in the back of my mind as I stepped over yet another Yharnamite covered in bugs. I had forgotten to ask Doll about that, and told myself to ask her the next time I saw her.

What I should have done is turn around, go back to the lamp and demand answers. I didn't because Doll didn't seem to know all that much about 'the waking world' and I was already en route to the Bridge Beast. I wasn't one for procrastination and I didn't want to put it off. If it went badly then I'd be speaking to Doll soon anyway.

The shortcut I used put me on the bridge between where the beasts roamed and the brute stared blankly at the sky. It was a simple matter to blind him and sneak around like I had the last time I came through here. I didn't need to address the beasts, since I didn't make enough noise for them to notice me.

I waited for the brute to calm down before stepping into the vast expanse of empty space where the Bridge Beast had thrown me from. After waiting for a moment for my bugs to spread across the bridge, nothing happened. I had some cockroaches carry over a loose stone and kicked it across the bridge.

The response was immediate, a blood curdling screech that made my skin crawl. The little Endbringer jumped from somewhere unseen to the wall at the end of the bridge, sending stones scattering with its sheer size. It inspected me for a moment, purple mist drifting from two intense orbs. Then it moved.

Last time, it had jumped over the wall, walked towards me using its larger arm as a third leg. Then it jumped at me, striking with its oversized claws as it descended. All at a nice measured pace. There was none of that this time. It leaped forwards instead of up, crossing the considerable distance between us in a moment and swinging down with its claw.

I dodged to my left the moment it registered, quite possibly travelling further than I intended to because of the displaced wind from the creature's attack. It was also possible that it was because of my new muscle strength taking me off guard, but I doubted that. The abilities that the echoes gave came with the experience of the ones that had gained them in the first place.

While my body dodged the claw, a hundred other scenes were playing in my head of me dodging other things. A thrown bottle, still half full, a smaller claw that I was just fast enough to evade, a saw cleaver that I was not.

Maybe I should have taken some time to get used to this before facing the Bridge Beast. A nice sentiment to entertain, but it was too late now.

The beast moved again, righting itself in an instant and turning to face me. I had already acted, but not with my body. When the beast attacked it had extended itself horizontally to further its reach. Doing so meant it was practically lying on the ground, and I used that opportunity to get as many bugs on the beast as possible. My bugs were now giving me a mental map of the beast's every move, so that I didn't necessarily have to see him to keep track of him.

It wouldn't help much given the fact that I would still need to react to it's movements, and since it was blindingly fast now that was going to be trouble. But the bugs on it as well as the bugs around me meant that I could keep track of my surroundings, my position, and the beast's position.

The Bridge Beast swiped sideways, and I tried to dodge back. Instead of letting me go, the beast leaned forward on its legs, catching me off guard with a sudden extension of its reach. It sustained the assault by swinging overarm with its smaller arm and I dodged forward into close range. When it missed with its attack, I cut into it with mine. My new strength letting me sink the saw cleaver into it in a way I hadn't ever done before.

The blade caught on strips of sinew and muscle, it's saw like edges catching more than a simple blade would. When I tore the saw cleaver out, I pulled down instead of out almost instinctively, utilising the ripping power of the serrated weapon. Blood spurted out in a red torrent, staining my pants and almost making me slip as I made to evade the Bridge Beast's next attack.

I dodged the next attack as well as I holstered my saw cleaver. It swung sideways and I ducked forwards so it couldn't get me like it had last time. I used the opening to use a blood vial instead of attacking. Then when I dodged away from its attempt to grab me, I pulled my gun out and shot it in the head.

It did fuck all. The way its head reacted to the impact might have just been a tic. Maybe the other hunters were onto something with their pedigree enhancing their guns. If they were, that was useless to me now.

Fucking tinkers.

The gun was holstered for the time being and I didn't bother reloading it. Instead, I pulled out the saw cleaver and prepared to move. The rapid handling of equipment with my left hand was coming a lot easier than it was before. Not as good as I had been with my dominant hand, but better than it was. Maybe some of the echoes were left handed. It seemed a reasonable explanation. A dozen visions played in the back of my head at the thought.

_Not the time, Taylor._

My introspection delayed a reaction by a split second as the Bridge Beast attacked with its smaller arm. It was a lighter attack with little wind up, so I nearly missed it. I dodged, but it caught my shin with the overarm swing and it jumped up, knocking me in the head with its claw as it went up.

I could tell from my bugs that it had jumped forward in the moments before it left my range. So it dashed to where it used to be and started fumbling for a blood vial. The Bridge Beast came back into my range and slammed down on a carriage, utterly destroying it and sending splinters everywhere. An errant spoke hit my hand and destroyed my blood vial, so I had to start fumbling for another with wet hands.

Like before, I darted into an opening before jabbing the blood vial in. Then I had to force myself to ignore that constantly returning rustic taste as I darted between the Bridge Beasts legs.

… The next time I did that I was going to swing up with the saw cleaver. Hopefully the beast placed the same value on the family jewels as man sized men did.

The Bridge Beast and I didn't touch each other for a while as I tried to find an opening. Twice, I thought I had one, but then I sensed it tensing through the fleas and other bugs I had placed on it. I abandoned the attack and backed off in time to avoid one of the beast's claws swinging at where I would have been. Twice, I fell for the trap and had to back off and heal.

There was a problem with backing off, however. The Bridge Beast could cross the distance quicker than I could and staying out of its range was impossible. If I managed to get far enough away that it couldn't hit me with its big arm, it would jump and come down right on top of me. Other times, it would just repeat its opening move. It meant that I had little time to deal with the claw marks all over my body, tearing up my clothes.

I managed though, and even got a few nicks in with the saw cleaver. These 'nicks' were actually me sinking the weapon as far into the beast as it could go and ripping through as much of it as I possibly could as I pulled my weapon free. All while making full use of my enhanced strength. It's legs were covered in blood from the wounds, but the Bridge Beast didn't look like it cared all that much.

So they were nicks.

Despite its disregard for the physical trauma I had inflicted upon it, I was beginning to figure the beast out. It had explosive speed and tremendous strength, but it didn't utilise them all the time. Whenever there was a chance that the beast would hit itself, it slowed right the fuck down to make sure it didnt. It only did that when I was close, so that was where I needed to spend most of my time.

The problem with being close was that it constantly tried to grab me when I was. If it managed to grab ahold of me, it would throw me off the bridge again. That was something I did _not_ want to happen. Which kind of put me at an impasse.

I wasn't looking at the beast when it picked up the carriage, but I knew when it did from all the bugs that were on it suddenly moving. The reason I wasn't looking was because I was administering a blood vial to heal from the second time it successfully baited me, and when I looked up a giggle escaped me. It was holding the carriage above its head.

I blanked my expression as I tensed. If that thing hit me, it would be more than _ticklish_. Curse this addiction.

The beast walked closer, easily moving with the heavy thing in its grasp. I tensed a little more, then ran straight at it. Purposefully running at about half speed. It reacted quickly, bringing the carriage down right on top of me. When I sensed it tense, I picked up speed and dodged under the beast as it brought the vehicle down where I would have been.

Both the beast's blood and mine had wet the bridge, letting me slide between the legs of the beast as I swung upwards with the saw cleaver. My hat was nearly knocked off by the resulting blood spatter, which I ignored as I got back to my feet and kept running. The Bridge Beast howled, and swung the carriage around on level with the ground. Thankfully, I was already out of the way when it did.

But then it raised the carriage again, now in a thoroughly destroyed state, and threw it at me before I had a chance to catch my breath. I couldn't tell the thing's trajectory, so I dropped to the ground, curled up, and hoped. It landed right before me and bounced just a little as it sailed past. Half destroyed pieces of carriage caught my leg and stump as the body of the carriage went over me.

I released my hold on the saw cleaver and went straight for a blood vial. Somehow rolling away from the beast to avoid an overhead swing at the same time. With some difficulty, I made it to my feet and attempted to dodge another swing. But the claws caught on my good arm, making it bleed and almost making me drop the vial. I jabbed it in before I could think twice about it or actually lose my grip. Splinters were ejected from my body as my cuts healed up.

Just in time, too. The beast backhanded me with it's large arm, sending me flying into a wall. I hit the wall, then dropped to the ground in a series of three painful impacts. The fact that I was _giggling_ infuriated me as I pulled myself to my feet again and tried to dodge under the beast as it attempted to grab me. Dodging more successfully this time and gaining myself an opening to heal with a blood vial and giggle some more.

I guess the beast's reaction meant it did care about the family jewels. Even if the pain didn't seem to incapacitate it too much.

Reclaiming my saw cleaver was as easy as leaning down when my enlarged cockroaches delivered it to me. Then I started sticking to the Bridge Beast's thighs. Keeping my distance just invited it to jump around and throw big things. When I was close it had to regulate its strength, so I was going to take full advantage of that, thank you very much.

The change in tactic worked, and the beast howled its frustration as it tried to bat me away. Every slow attack at a spot immediately beside or behind it was easy to evade, and left the beast open for a counterattack. I should have started hugging it with the cleaver sooner.

It tried to jump away a few times, but I was always close behind it. I was worried it would run to Cathedral Ward, but it seemed intent on finishing the fight regardless of its now very real chance of losing. The Bridge Beast was tiring, I could tell.

A failed attempt to grab me put the beast's head within reach for the first time, so I swung at it as hard as I could. The blow made blood spew from its head and it reared back, clutching at the wound uselessly. Then it fell forward, making me dodge away so it didn't land on me.

It wasn't dead yet, I could tell through my bugs. I went for the weak point and sawed into the beast's temple. It flinched and I swung again, getting the blade to catch in it's caved skull, then ripped it out. The Bridge Beast flinched up to a standing position, then stopped moving. Slowly, it fell backwards with a large crash, shaking the bridge.

I glanced at my saw cleaver and saw grey matter spattered on the blade. The Bridge Beast wasn't moving, causing relief and clarity to fall over my body and mind. I had slaughtered my prey.

Then the body started glowing.


	11. 1 Corruption 11

The purple mist drifting from the Bridge Beast's eyes lingered for a few moments longer than I would have liked, given that it should have been dead with most of its brain located outside of the skull. After a few scary moments, the light in the orbs winked out and I felt something resound throughout my veins. That wasn't what weirded me out, though.

A pale ray of light caught my attention. It was coming from the body of the Bridge Beast. Another pale ray joined the first, then another, and then two more. The light quickly became blinding and I shielded my eyes and I felt the bugs that were on the body start to fall one by one as it vanished.

After a few moments I looked again to see that while the body had completely disappeared, but the light still lingered and was coalescing in the centre of the bridge. I approached, which is something I would never have done if a serenity like Doll's hadn't overtaken me in the moment. When I got close to the light it turned into its final shape and solidified into a lantern.

It also solidified into a second something just above the lantern, which dropped once the light had properly vanished into it. It bounced off the top of the lantern and skidded over the bloodstained ground to my feet. The stranger effect vanished in that moment and I jumped back, sending flies to look at it instead of looking myself.

The object was small enough to fit in the palm of my hand and looked like the hilt of a sword. It had no blade, and would have been too tiny to properly grip, anyway. Instead of functional, it was ornate. Carvings covered the handle and guard, with lines focusing on a blue gem in the centre of the trinket.

Having flies headbut the thing didn't elicit any reactions, like it blowing up or something, so I stepped forward myself and picked it up. It was cool to the touch and gave no indication that it had any supernatural function beyond what I had seen. I didn't fiddle with it, but I did keep it. With the body of the Cleric Beast gone, it was the only proof that I had killed it.

It was something to ask Doll about, that was for sure.

I made my way towards the gate to Cathedral Ward, stopping briefly to touch the lantern and welcome the little ones to the bridge. There were a large set of double doors, as well as a smaller door off to the side. Both were currently closed. The notion that things weren't going to go to plan played at the back of my mind before my power started taking control of bugs on the other side of the gate.

The gate looked fine from where I was standing, but the bugs on the other side told me that the structures on the other side of the gate had collapsed. They weren't currently operable, nor was there anyone to operate them. I still searched for a half minute, but it was easy to see there wasn't anything that I could do using bugs. To open the door, I would need to move a lot of heavy rubble, then lift a wooden bar on the other side that had been placed specifically so that people from Yharnam couldn't enter Cathedral Ward.

I turned to the smaller door and tested it. Unsurprisingly, it was locked. My shortened range didn't detect the presence of anyone on the other side. I kicked the door where the lock should have been and it didn't budge. The wood was unreasonably durable. So much so that even my enhanced strength couldn't do anything about it.

This was a dead end. I'd killed the Cleric Beast for nothing.

~Drip~Drip~

Gilbert rolled on over to the window with a tray of tea in his lap. The aroma pierced through the haze of blood that seemed to hang around me. Bugs, and therefore me, watched as he peered closer to the parchment I had pressed against his window. It had a simple message written on it.

Bridge is closed. Need another way into Cathedral Ward.

"Is that so?" He asked, leaning back into his chair.

I pulled the parchment away and tapped on his window once, punctuating it with a nod.

"I see…" He thought for a moment, then. "Would you like some tea?"

After a moment's consideration, I nodded and tapped his window once more. He wheeled so he was facing the window sideways and poured a mug of steaming aromatic liquid. He unlatched the window and, with a quivering hand, extended a mug through the bars. I pocketed the parchment and accepted the mug with my remaining hand.

It felt hot, so I started waiting for it to cool and waited for Gilbert to speak.

"I thought that the great bridge would be the only way to the Cathedral Ward." He spoke, thinking out loud. With me silenced, it was for the best. "And during the hunt, the bridge is closed… Hmm..."

I decided to take a sip of the tea and scalded my tongue. It took a force of will not to immediately take a blood vial. The Cleric Beast had made me use more than half my stock in the end. The strong urge to take blood was worrying. I quenched it and waited for the tea to cool.

Gilbert chuckled seeing my reaction. "You could try the aqueduct? There's a rather, how shall I put it, colourful area south of the Great Bridge. From there, an aqueduct leads to the Cathedral Ward." He paused to cough up his lungs, then eventually took a moment to calm down. "It's not a place you'd normally want to visit, but I don't imagine you have much of a choice. Do you?"

I laughed quietly, making a conscious effort not to giggle, and shook my head. I tapped the mug against a bar twice.

"How do you like the tea?" Gilbert asked.

I raised my free arm to gesture, then realised the hand wasn't there. The arm dropped and I looked at Gilbert like a deer caught in the headlights.

"Go on, try it." He prompted.

I frowned, since I had. To communicate that, I lifted the mug near my face and hissed through my teeth. Hopefully that would get across.

Gilbert laughed. "Oh, it's still too hot." He realised, then took a long and slow draught of his own tea, which should have been the same temperature. Gilbert let out a satisfied breath. "No it's abou-" He coughed. "Right for me."

I put the mug to my lips and sipped again, then hissed. It was still too hot. Gilbert was some kind of monster that enjoyed near boiling tea. He started laughing even harder.

I kept my eyes hard as I judged him, which made him laugh more. He looked pathetic in his chair, and he was horrendously thin, but it was reassuring seeing him so alive. My eyes softened.

After letting the tea cool down to a more reasonable temperature, I made sure to savour it, seeing as this was the first time I was having any kind of blend since coming to Earth Yharm. It was alright, but nothing to write home about. Then I tapped the bars in front of his window once more, gave Gilbert back his mug, nodded, and made to leave.

"Farewell, Hunter." Gilbert said, pulling his window closed.

"Farewell, Gilbert." I muttered to myself. I knew the area that he had referred to, even unlocked an elevator that worked as a shortcut to the aqueduct he was referring to. The only reason I hadn't crossed it was because there were a shit tonne of Yharnamites in the way, there was no cover, and I'm pretty sure that the big ball at the end of the bridge wasn't there as decoration.

It wasn't ideal, but it would work. The only issue I had with it was that even with the elevator making the route easier to travel, I still had to get past two brutes and several Yharnam crazies. The walk took about fifteen minutes.

Upon arrival I took stock to see if anything had changed. There were mobsters walking up and down the bridge on a patrol that never seemed to actually leave the bridge. Far away on the other side, there was that big ball that was wide enough to cover most of the width of the path. Fire light flickered on the ball from somewhere I couldn't see.

There was a young Taylor, somehow not yet dead, who took one look at the situation and declared it was a boulder trap, like the one from that archaeological cowboy Aleph movie. A more cynical Taylor didn't think it would be that simple. In crossing the aqueduct bridge, the cynical Taylor was proven right once again.

I was walking at a comfortable pace across the bridge. Whenever I was moving through Yharnam, I moved at a similar pace. It was a little slower than my body naturally wanted to walk, and I had to consciously slow my walking speed most of the time. If I didn't move at that slow pace, then my swarm would slowly dissipate as bugs would get left behind and return to whatever lives they lived before being my minions.

It wasn't a problem I had ever needed to face on Bet, since my range had never been less than three whole blocks in any direction. Unless fleeing in a straight line, I could be lenient and have bugs take a more direct route to wherever I was going. If I was fleeing in a straight line, bugs probably would be busy, or not that much help anyway.

Now that I was on Earth Yharm and my range only seemed to extend twenty feet, I had to stay aware of bugs leaving my power. Lest I be caught off guard with only a few minions. So I strolled along a little slower than I would have liked across the bridge, having my swarm flood over the Yharnam mob as they attacked and incapacitate them. It was when I was halfway across the aqueduct that the cynical Taylor's prediction came to pass.

I spied a torch being pressed to the side of the ball. It must have been covered in oil, because the entire thing lit up in an instant. In that same instant, the fiery thing was pushed hard down a set of stairs that led down to the very gentle incline of the bridge. Or the decline, if you were approaching from the direction that the ball was. Point was, it wasn't slowing.

I turned and ran, pulling my swarm with me and pushing it to the side of the bridge so that the ball wouldn't roll over them. The bugs that could cling to wall or fly were pushed over the walls of the bridge to move safely where the ball couldn't possibly reach, while those that could not moved to where the ball physically could not get because of its shape. My swarm was safe from this trap.

But I was not. The ball on fire was gaining on me. It was halfway down the bridge while I hadn't even made it halfway back to safety. I spun, looking at the ball of fiery crushing, and made a snap decision. Muscles tensed, then I changed my mind and tensed in a different way. I dove to my right and rolled into the corner of the bridge, pressing myself against the wall to make myself as small as possible.

In an instant the ball rolled past me. I was lit on fire a bit, but patted that out. It only killed a few of my bugs, which made me click my tongue in disappointment. I had been trying to save those ones, but they hadn't moved out of the way in time. Before, I would have had each of them out of the way without even really thinking about it. Now… it was a reminder.

I ignored it and looked to the far end of the bridge. There were two Yharnamites, one being a brute, still standing. All the others on the bridge had been killed by the boulder of fire. When I made it to their end and had them swarmed with bugs, it took a conscious effort not to kill them. I had to dodge the brute once or twice as he charged around with murder on his mind.

After hiding for a bit and calling away my bugs, he calmed down and I moved on. The area after that was different. In Yharnam, there were dozens of coffins in every street. Sometimes, in every house. Here, there were still coffins, but the number of statues increased immensely.

I wasn't that far in, but I had already encountered several clusters of humanoid figures wrapped in cloth in various poses. They were lined up in the street, or built into the corners where there weren't any windows.

There were two beast-men that I killed who were enraptured by four such statues built in a corner. They were staring at the statues, unmoving, letting me wonder what was going through their minds as I prepared for a sneak attack. I disabled one permanently from the get-go, then made quick work of the other. Later I had to pass some Yharnamites who I briefly blinded and let go on their way.

Eventually I found myself walking into a cemetary. There was a huge obelisk in the centre of the cluttered space that towered up thirty or more feet. It almost reminded me of the monuments that had popped up after Endbringer attacks. The only real differences being the statue on top, and the state of decay in this place that made it list to the side.

Dead or dying trees grew or remained around clusters of gravestones. They weren't lined up or anything, but clustered together with wide spaces between the groups of many headstones. It made me think that they were for mass graves rather than individual resting places. With the body count, it made sense.

A thunk caught my attention.

The sound had come from where a man had just sunk his weapon into something in a far corner of the cemetery. He was just outside my range, so I couldn't get a good look at him yet. But I did see as he raised a big axe over his head and sunk it into whatever he was attacking again. I stepped closer cautiously and saw via bugs what it was. A human yharnamite. Long dead with his chest more paste than solid.

The man raised his axe again. "Beasts all over the shop." He grunted, then swung his axe into the dead man's chest again.

I was closer now, and could see his features better. He was tall and strongly built, and he was swinging that axe around with one hand like it was nothing. He had long hair that had turned white with either stress or age. He seemed the sort to whiten early, because he didn't have many wrinkles on his face.

"You'll be one of them, sooner or… Later..." The man had stopped assaulting the dead body and was standing up straight, turning to face me. His mouth was wide and he let his jaw hang open, showing his sharp canines as he breathed mist at me.

I already had the gun in my hand. That wonderful thing that people get after years of experience, where they just get a bad feeling, it was happening to me. If this guy was going to attack me, I needed every advantage I could get. He was just talking, breathing, and standing with his muscles tensed. Yet he was making me feel more afraid than the Cleric Beast ever had.

"Heh… Heh heh… Heh..." The man let his posture slip, letting his body slump forwards, then leaning to the side and then backwards as he let his head flop back. He came to a stop looking at the night sky, with a wide and crazed open mouth smile on his face. "Heh heh heh… Ha Ha!"

"What's so funny?" I demanded.

"Heh. Hah! HA!" He barked out, then snapped back to his tense stance. It happened in the blink of an eye and nearly made me flinch. "I had a feeling this night was different… but this… Oh, this… Tonight is a sickened hunt unlike any other..."

"Why's that?" I shot at him.

"Heh… Don't worry." The hunter told me. "I'll put you back in your grave." Then he was three feet in front of me with his axe raised over his head.

Years of finding myself in similar scenarios was the only thing that saved me. My select interactions with Jack Slash was the only reason I managed to get away from his opening attack with nothing less than a bleeding stump. Jack had gone from idle conversation to full out assault multiple times with me present and this wasn't too different.

I shot him, this time with a bullet, and dodged back in an attempt to find some time to heal. The hunter walked off the gunshot and pursued me for several feet before stopping and raising the weapon in his left hand. It was a big gun. I tried to evade to the side but found myself tripping on a cluster of graves.

He pulled the trigger the moment I got trapped and shrapnel ripped into my body. I could feel where some of the pieces were digging against my nerves. I disentangled myself from the graves, dropping the gun because it was useless against this guy, and started scrambling for a blood vial as I continued my retreat.

The hunter didn't want to give me any time to let up. He charged around the way I was heading, intending to cut me off. It would have worked if I hadn't tagged him with bugs and altered my course the moment he changed direction. The blood vial went in and a rustic taste appeared in the back of my mouth as my body knitted itself together. The shrapnel was ejected before the skin closed in most cases.

In the cases where it did not, the skin was closed a second time.

I pulled my saw cleaver out of its holster and crouched by a gravestone. I was keeping track of where the hunter was and was looking using my bugs. There were several flies surrounding him that he didn't seem aware of yet. Good. But I would have to keep him focused on me to keep it that way. The hunter wasn't looking my way, but was close. I tensed.

The hunter spun to face me the moment me and my swarm moved, but he wasn't fast enough to stop me from digging my saw cleaver into his shoulder and ripping down. I had barely finished the action when I got an axe in my chest for my trouble, threatening to push me off balance. Viciously determined, I dodged to my left as he hefted his big gun in preparation to shoot, making him miss. Then I closed the distance, cut up his body with the cleaver and dodged back before really completing the attack.

I backed off without taking a hit that time, but overall I'd come out worse. The shot from his gun had taken out a big part of my swarm. I spread them out as best I could so I couldn't take a loss like that again, but that gun put a lot of shrapnel in a fucking huge area.

Some flies were buzzing around at the fringe of my range. I almost called them to me as I tried to find some time to administer another blood vial, but paused when I realised they were hanging around another body. A woman in a dark dress.

While I tried to keep a cluster of graves between me and the hunter, I sent more bugs over to investigate and build a clearer picture in my head. She was lying face down, with a pool of blood surrounding her, dripping down the structure. It was strange because the body was on the top of a tomb. There was no access from below. She must have been stabbed from behind, going by the wound, then dropped from above.

Regardless, I explored the body and paused when I found something. The hunter got too close and I had to give up on using a blood vial because of the moment's hesitation. I was forced to move far enough away from the body that my power left the bugs there, but was able to eventually circle back.

The bugs that had started to wander were pulled back to their previous task the moment they were back under my control. I knew what they would find, but I had to be certain. When I saw the beautiful red brooch through the eyes of my bugs, a chill swept through my body.

The little girl's mother was dead.

"You killed Viola!" I yelled at the hunter.

"No!" The hunter swung with fury, smashing through a gravestone I had just been using as cover. He pointed off to the side with his gun, towards the dead Yharnamites. "They killed her. I found her, dead, with those crows congratulating themselves for killing an outsider. She's Yharnam born! They killed my wife, so I killed them!"

He stopped, staring at me.

"It's enough to drive a man mad…" All the anger in his voice was gone. "Yes… I suppose this night is a mad one… I'm talking to you… aren't I?"

I decided he wasn't about to attack at that moment and jabbed the blood vial in. My supply was starting to run really low. The healing blood spread throughout my body, forcing me to giggle as my chest billowed out to it's normal shape.

"Hi hi ha." Escaped my lips.

"Heh ha. Haa…" He laughed like a dying man. His age seemed to fall from his shoulders and he looked me in the eyes. "Sing to me, Taylor." Then he leaped towards me with his axe raised to strike.


	12. 1 Corruption 12

The mad hunter reminded me of Alexandria, in a way. The heroine had been indestructible, which wasn't something that my adversary had in common with her. What they did have in common was a disregard for physical attacks, an unfair amount of physical strength, and an unrelenting drive to accomplish their goals.

For one, that had meant convincing me that my friends were dying because of my actions. For the other, it meant smashing through pieces of solid stone that I kept trying to use as cover and using the flying debris as a secondhand weapon. We fought as brutes do, trading blows and weathering the hits. Healing when we could. Both of us were trying to be headstrong and smart about it.

I never even thought about going in for an attack if it meant getting severely maimed. The hunter seemed to be swinging for my one arm whenever he had the chance. He had hit me there twice, but had not succeeded in removing the limb so far. If he did, I would be dead again. No question.

The hunter on the other hand, figured out my tactic right away and started feinting with obvious openings that only left enough time for me to attack, but not retreat. When I was too far away to hit with the axe, he raised his large shotgun and would wait until I couldn't dodge before pulling the trigger. My only saving grace was being able to observe him using bugs, letting me have a better grasp on his intentions.

That alone saved me from a half dozen fatal blows.

As his assault against me extended, I started thinking. Sometime along the way I swept my gun up and had bugs load a blood bullet into it. The hunter had known Viola by name. He had shown as much when I mentioned it, as well as knowing she was Yharnam born. It suggested an intimate knowledge of her. Couple that with what the little girl told me, what I read on the music box, and I believed I was talking to Gascoigne.

Part of me wanted to ask about the little girl's wide mouth and Viola's last name, but I didn't have the time to address it.

A plan formed in my head, my hand stowing my weapon briefly to pull the music box from my pocket and toss it to the dark corner where my swarm was waiting. Gascoigne took the opportunity to get close and try behead me with his axe. My hand shifted from going to the saw cleaver to the gun and I performed a quick draw like you used to see in westerns.

I saw the bullet fucking bounce off of his chest, but the force of the shot put Gascoigne off balance. Dropping the gun, I darted close and pulled the saw cleaver out, then drove it bodily into his stomach. The blade only sunk in half an inch, but blood splashed and I dragged the cleaver across his body, prompting a huge spurt of blood as I tore the serrated thing from his chest.

My assault complete, I backed the fuck up, adjusting for the stairs my bugs told me were behind me. My caution was rewarded when Gascoigne's retaliating swing merely clipped my nose and didn't even touch my glasses. He grunted and holstered his gun, attaching it to a strap on his back and pulling it around so the gun was anchored near his shoulder. Then he gripped his axe and pulled the handle down. Where before the handle was about as long as an axe from my old world, now it was taller than Gascoigne.

He was advancing as I was retreating, so the distance between us was the same. He swung his axe again, overhead this time. Since his reach had extended while the distance between us hadn't, I dodged to the side, almost slipping on the steps. I caught myself and felt relief when I heard the axe impact on the staircase next to me. A few shards of stone hit me instead of an axe. Then I heard a click and looked to see Gascoigne had his shotgun back in hand and aimed at me.

"_Don-_" I started saying.

Gascoigne shot me, riddling me with shrapnel. There was a click as he loaded the gun.

"What's that smell?" He wondered aloud, then shot me again. This time the impact carried me backwards, landing me awkwardly on the stairs.

"The sweet blood, oh, it… sings… to me… Just… Just like..." He came to a faltering halt. There was the tiny sound of music in the air, it seemed to cause the whole world to crash around Gascoigne. My bugs carried the music box closer, but kept it in the shadows.

Gascoigne's hands dropped his equipment and he clutched at his head. He screamed, sobbed, and roared all at once. I had seen stuff like this before, people realising just how badly they had fucked up. The bugs wound up the music box as soon as it ended. Thankfully Gascoigne didn't come out of it as soon as the music stopped.

I jabbed a blood vial into my leg and clapped my hand over my mouth to stop the giggles. They still came, albeit muffled. The sensation of all that shrapnel moving out of my body was too much. Gascoigne's head snapped in my direction like an animal when it happened, but then it snapped in another direction, then another. There was spit flying from his mouth.

Slowly, I got to my feet and looked at him. My bugs delivered my weapons back to me and I made sure to take stock. I still had bullets, but they weren't much use here. There were only four blood vials left, and that was including Iosefka's. I gripped the handle of the saw cleaver and looked at Gascoigne.

He could still talk, meaning that he was not a beast by my definition, doubly so because he wasn't even showing a hint of the beastly transformation that had swept over Yharnam. That meant I immediately didn't want to kill him, yet I had been swept away by things and engaged in a fight where only one of us would leave. There hadn't been any hesitation.

Gascoigne was grief ridden, that much was plain to see from how he reacted to my accusation and then this. Then there was the how he knew my name. That just… didn't make sense.

_Wait..._

He understood me.

How had I missed that?

_Was I getting blood drunk as well?_

The music stopped for a moment and I had the bugs wind it up again. Gascoigne had started striking things around him. He hit the railing at first, then he stumbled over and hit the wall, then a tree, then a gravestone. The gravestone broke.

_Killing him would be a mercy._

The thought came unbidden and made me grimace, but I couldn't deny it. _Right now in this moment_, if I killed Gascoigne I could find rest knowing that it was a mercy killing. Not quite euthenasia, but similar. On the other hand, I didn't really _want_ to kill anyone…

Damnit, this place was changing me.

"_Gascoigne!_" I yelled, making my bugs stop the music. "_Think of your little girl!_"

He punched a tree, his bloodied fist going through the trunk and being pulled out in the same instant. His screaming stopped and he turned to face me with barely contained rage.

"_You have a little girl at home!_" I kept yelling. "_She's still alive! She needs you!_"

"Don't talk about her." Gascoigne growled. He didn't have his weapons, but the words made my hairs stand on end.

I moved to step between him and his weapons as a way to assure myself. The fact that it cut him off from the things he was using to kill me was a nice bonus. Gascoigne growled and started running at me, so I had the bugs release the wind up on the music box. The moment it played Gascoigne's priorities shifted to covering his ears and shaking the invading memories from his head.

After letting it play for ten or so seconds I stopped it again. "_You can't lose yourself like this._"

"What do you know!?" He yelled.

"_More than you think._" I said.

"Really now? Why don't you let me see what they did to you?"

That made me frown. "_What who did to me?_"

Silence filled the cemetery, choking us.

"Hah…" Gascoigne laughed, dead. "I see… Too proud to show your real face, eh…" He fell to his knees.

The moment his legs bent his body was wracked by something growing within. Gascoigne's clothes tore to accommodate the increased mass as his skin turned grey with growing fur. His face was suddenly that of a beast's, just as his hands became claws and his voice became a howl.

The beast that was Gascoigne charged straight for me. I pull my gun first and shot him off balance, getting the muzzle up just in time to interrupt his first swing. Like before I dropped the gun and went straight for the saw cleaver. I felt guilty doing this to someone who I had been exchanging words with just moments ago, but I dug into Gascoigne's chest for a second time with the saw cleaver, this time pulling more blood with me as I tore his insides out.

My attack made Gascoigne stagger, which I used to follow up with more cuts and slashes. That was a mistake. Gascoigne swung blindly at me, catching me with a backswing and throwing me from the staircase with the sheer strength of his strike. My leg caught on the wrought iron railing and lost feeling below where I got cut. Then I tumbled over and fell to the gravestones below.

A fall like that would have killed me until not too long ago. Now it just broke my legs, my back, and brought me close to death. White particles flitted around the edges of my vision. I dropped the saw cleaver and found a vial to heal with. The moment I felt the invigorating infusion start I realised I had made a mistake.

_I fell down the stairs._

I giggled as the feeling in my legs returned and I pushed myself from the graves. Not a moment too soon, as Gascoigne dropped down where I had been, smashing the gravestones as he landed. He rose, breathing mist in my face as I relentlessly giggled despite everything. I writhed in the ticklish feeling.

My saw cleaver had been propelled somewhere. I didn't know where and I was giggling. While my constant cackling threw an even darker mood over me, I was still paying attention to Gascoigne and dived away when he brought both hands over his head. When he struck, dust spread explosively from the impact and I felt particles impact on my cloak.

Gascoigne was even stronger now, which was bullshit and kind of expected. I wasn't about to let this version of him try out any new strength on me, since even before his transformation he had caved in my chest with ease. I focused exclusively on dodging as I found my saw cleaver and gun and collected both.

The endeavour took me to the far side of the cemetery, and the bugs holding the music box left my range. Since I wasn't telling them to do anything, they started to wander and the music played again. Like before, there was a palpable effect on Gascoigne as the memories ripped through him. Even his now beast-like mind couldn't handle it.

Then it stopped and he came right back to trying to kill me with a furious howl.

I navigated back around the cemetery, now fully armed, and stayed near the music box. When Gascoigne got close I released the music, causing him to clutch at his head again. This time I attacked from his back and stopped the music in the same moment. I tried to dodge him, but got a claw across my chest for my trouble.

The music covered for me as I healed up. Then I went for his side. It repeated again, and again, and then I was out of blood vials.

I wasn't sure what to do. Gascoigne still had a lot of life in him and I couldn't risk going in like that again. Then my arm brushed against my other weapon. I had sixteen shots at the moment, including the blood bullets. When I ran out, I could make more for a time. After that…

I just had to hope that would be enough to kill him.

It took twenty four bullets to the head to finish the job. Making the blood bullets nearly killed me.

Gascoigne's final sounds sent chills down my spine as the night darkened.

~Drip~Drip~

**y***

When I finished killing Gascoigne he disappeared in the same way the _Cleric Beast_ had. His body dissolving into light which then formed a lantern as well as a second item, a Key. It unlocked the gate at the top of the cemetery and I continued through, stopping only to retrieve the red brooch from Viola's corpse before leaving the place I had met _Father Gascoigne _behind.

Of course, first I gathered some blood vials and healed up. That fight had left me rough.

After splashing through some water and climbing a ladder, I found myself inside a small library. There was an item of interest in a lockbox that I looted, yielding a contraption with similar runes to the tool for blood bullets. Another thing from the Hunter's Dream.

There was a little one there on the table as well, holding a note.

It read, "_The Byrgenwerth spider hides all manner of rituals, and keeps our lost master from us._

_A terrible shame._

_It makes my head shudder uncontrollably._"

Three things jumped out at me from the passage. The first being the author's description of their head shuddering. There was something about it… Maybe it was the way it was written that reminded me of Lisa's thinker headaches. Was the author another parahuman? There wasn't a signature or anything to indicate who had written it.

The second was the capitalised Byrgenwerth. Another name to look out for, though this one seemed to describe a place rather than a person, since the message described a spider from there, or indicated possessiveness.

The third was the use of the word spider. I hadn't encountered any spiders since coming to Earth Yharm. It had been a constant worry nestling in the back of my mind that there wouldn't be any spiders here, and this note put that worry to rest. In its place a few dozen other questions arose.

If there were spiders, why weren't they widespread? What species of spiders existed here? Did they have black widows? Anything poisonous, but not lethal that I could add to my swarm? Was there something special about the _Byrgenwerth Spider_?

I took the note as a reminder, as well as more parchment to write on for when I needed to communicate. The little one holding it vanished into the table after doing a little excited dance. Maybe it was happy to be of service. Either way, it brought a hint of a smile to my face.

Up the stairs from there I encountered a problem, my bugs didn't want to follow me. I had walked up to a door when I realised they weren't following. There was a smell in the air that I recognised from the occupied doors and windows around Yharnam. Incense.

I hadn't realised how much my bugs averted it. When I directed my bugs to move through where the incense permeated, they simply refused to move. It was like they hit a wall that they could move away from, but if they tried to knock it down, their bodies just stopped.

No, that wasn't it. _Some_ bugs made it through the incense. I checked the ones that could and came to a conclusion as to what the defining factor was. It was how far the beastly transformation had affected my bugs. There were two cockroaches that I had climb up my legs that had little or no fur growing from their carapace. No flies were able to join me, but some moths were. Surprisingly few ants could make it.

With my swarm reduced to less than a tenth of its size, I pushed the ornate doors slowly open.

I found myself in a church. It was sparsely lit, but from what candles were lit and from the small amount of light from outside I could make out carefully crafted details carved into every inch of this place. The amount of care that had been put into maintaining it was obvious as well, since the place was in a state of disrepair.

It seemed Cathedral Ward was just as gothic as Yharnam.

There was a lantern in the church that I touched, summoning the little ones. Just at the fringes of my range I could feel bugs flitting around a filthy man with a huge sack who was hitting his head against the wall of the church. It occured to me that I should use the echoes within me before venturing forth.

I crouched down and let one of the little ones start to pull me away. Movement from behind me made me start to look in that direction, but I was gone before I could get a look at whatever it was.

~Drip~Drip~

*** **** *** I **

"Welcome home, good hunter." Doll greeted me as I appeared in the dream.

I walked towards her. "_Doll…_" A sensation unlike anything I had felt before overwhelmed me. I stopped far away from her, trying to pin it down. Anticipation?

"Taylor…" Doll caught on to my uncertainty. "What is it you desire?"

"_I…_" I didn't know. But I did have echoes coursing through me. The _Cleric Beast_ and _Father Gascoigne_. They were more active in Doll's presence, and were raging through my bloodstream. They wanted to get out. Maybe it wasn't me feeling this.

I raised my arm to where Doll needed it to use her power and she understood. She knelt and summoned her silver orb as I shut my eyes. This time I wasn't shown a void. Rather, I was seeing new visions. But they were blurry, I couldn't make anything out.

"How would you prefer to let these echoes become your strength?" Doll asked softly.

I thought for a moment, taking my time. "_These echoes, how do they compare to what you used before?_"

"Two stand out from the rest." Doll said.

"_How would they best be used?_"

"Hmm..." Doll hummed, focusing for a moment. We didn't speak while she found an answer to my question.

"One echo holds great presence within you." Doll told me. "It weathered many trials and punishments, and the blood rewarded it for its devotion."

"_Good for strengthening the body?_" I checked.

"Yes."

"_And the other?_"

"The other is very refined. It isn't much larger than the others in the sea of echoes you collected during your hunt, but there is an edge to it."

"_Strength for that one, then._" I recalled how _Father Gascoigne _had backhanded me from the stairs. Yeah, strength fit.

"What would you like from the rest of your echoes?"

"_Skill._" I instantly answered. If it helped me put my cleaver in the right places or assisted me with swapping weapons, it would be worth it. Even if beasts didn't have much skill, it was going to be added to my own. I wasn't losing out with this.

"Very well." Doll activated her power and the visions assaulted me. I was more prepared for them this time, and didn't feel the need to scream. That being said, there was a thread of visions that I watched fly past with interest.

I kept my eyes closed as a tear slid down my cheek.

"Taylor?" Doll asked, concerned. "Good Hunter?"

I opened my eyes and met Doll's. I looked down at the constellations in my arm and lifted it up. My physical hand wrapped around the wrist of the incorporeal, and squeezed lightly to see how much stress it could take. I felt it on both ends, but the pale barrier broke instantly and the smoke dissipated in a moment.

I struggled to find the words to say.

"What is troubling you?" Doll questioned.

I looked away, letting my gaze fall upon the moon. "_It's nothing._" I said. "_There's nothing to be done about it now._"

"I understand." Doll said.

She didn't. I walked away, up the stairs of the garden to be closer to the moon. I stopped by a gravestone without a name on it and leaned on the stone for a time. Eventually the words found me.

"_Gascoigne, you utter brat…_"


	13. Deficient - Gascoigne

[Deficient]

I hit the corpse, spraying blood everywhere. The spatters joined the ones from the last twenty or so times I hit the corpse. Then I hit it again.

And again.

And again.

The buzzing of the insects around me changed. The sharp sound of approaching footsteps rang in my ears.

I hit the corpse, then dragged my axe out with a grunt. "Beasts all over the shop."

The footsteps stopped. I smelt blood and gunpowder. There was the scent of madness in the air, it assaulted my head and made me dizzy. I was familiar with the smell, the source was always a hunter. One about to go drunk on blood.

I swung my axe into the corpse one last time. That would have to be enough punishment for… The hunter needed to die.

"You'll be one of them," I turned to face… "Sooner…" It couldn't be. "Or later…" Taylor was standing before me. That was impossible.

~BLOOD~

"Gascoigne!" Taylor shouted. "Gascoigne, where are you!?"

I snickered to myself and clapped my hand over my mouth. Too late.

"Gascoigne!" A hand came over the roof and Taylor pulled herself over. She didn't look happy. My amusement vanished. "What are you doing up here? We need to go."

"I don't want to."

"Too bad." Taylor grabbed my arm, stopping me from going anywhere. "We're moving because mom was invited to Byrgenwerth. That's an honour."

"But dad's a priest. It's not going to work out." I pointed out.

"Oh my god, Gascoigne, weren't you listening?" Taylor pulled me closer to the edge. "Dad said the church has made his mission official. It's fine."

"Still."

"Gascoigne." Taylor cut me off. "We need to go."

I looked at the drop to the road below, then to where Taylor was holding me. "We gonna jump together?"

Taylor frowned, then released me. "You brat, go first. You better not look up when I'm coming down."

I grinned a wide grin and jumped, landing flawlessly. Then I made sure to look up at Taylor as she approached the edge.

"Stop that." She told me indignantly.

"No."

"Look away Gascoigne, you're being rude."

I shook my head, still looking.

"Why are you being such a brat?"

"Why are you lying to me?" I asked. Taylor's wide mouth pulled wider and thinned. "Yeah, I listen. Why are we really going?"

"I can tell you on the way." Taylor sighed. "Just look away so I can jump down."

"Nah."

"Gascoigne, you utter brat." She jumped, giving me a view of under her skirt. I blushed hard, I wasn't expecting her to actually do it. From the victorious look on her face, she knew I had been bluffing.

Then her delicate fingers skillfully reached forward and viciously pinched my ear, dragging me along.

"Taylor! Ow! Stop- Stop that!"

Taylor tutted. "You could have come quietly, but you had to make a thing out of it."

"Yeah, you lied to- Oooow!" I was cut off by Taylor giving my ear a sharp tug. "I'm going to walk! Just tell m- iii!" Another ruthless tug.

"Are you going to be good?" Taylor demanded.

I almost nodded despite the sharp pain in my ear. "Yes." I squeaked.

Taylor released me after pinching harder for a brief moment. I sighed in relief the moment the pain stopped.

"So why?" I demanded the moment I finished checking to see if my ear was bleeding. Taylor really needed to trim those nails.

Taylor sighed. "Mom got a letter from Master Willem. It said that he was impressed by the aptitude of the child tending to the tables of the Broken Saddle and wanted to further her education. There is a position for an assistant open at Byrgenwerth and so on and so forth."

"That was you?" I asked.

"Yeah."

"So _you're_ the one that's going to be a scholar."

"No. Mom already had a letter of invitation to Byrgenwerth, but she didn't want to leave Dad. She thinks that she's the real reason the letter was sent. Because now that I've got a letter that is specifically inviting me to an assistant position, we've got two reasons to go."

"What did Dad think?"

"He was the one that suggested it. Mom was against it at first." Taylor sighed. "I didn't want to make a big deal about it, okay? I don't even remember talking to Willem and I'm leaving Emma behind to go."

"Oh no!" I gasped in shock, mockingly. "I'm so sad that I'm leaving my friends from the city I grew up in to go and work at one of the most famous places in the world!"

Taylor batted the back of my head. "Shut up, dork."

"Sing to me and I'll forgive you."

"When we're on the way." She told me.

~family~

Dad let me sit in the front of the carriage with him, but I wasn't allowed to move from there until we stopped for the day. It was worth it.

Annette and Taylor were in the back. They had talked about girl stuff like who they were leaving behind and scholar stuff like what we were going to Yharnam for. But that had ended ages ago.

Taylor, as usual, hadn't kept her promise to sing for me, but she was humming a tune that I had to strain my ears to hear over the sound of the horses and the carriage wheels.

I liked it when she sang.

~song~

Danny walked in, his church garb completely covered in blood. His axe was left next to the door, which would make Mom mad if she saw it there, dripping more blood on the floor. Taylor was mad as well looking at it, but it was hard to tell through all the shivering.

The two of us were huddled further into the house, each of us holding a weapon for protection. I had a fire poker. Taylor had a kitchen knife. Neither of us moved as Danny took his time to doff his gear and eventually move into the kitchen for food. He paused.

"Put those down, they're useless." Danny said, his voice taught.

The fire poker dropped from my hand and clattered to the floor. Taylor was more careful putting her weapon away.

"I've told you that conventional weapons barely work against them." Danny continued. "What on earth did you think you could do with those?"

"It wasn't the beasts we were worried about." Taylor said.

Danny looked at her, thinking.

"People were knocking on the door, yelling about outsiders." I said, earning Danny's attention. "We didn't tell them we were here, but with the incense…"

Danny sighed. Deafening silence fell upon us all.

"Annette is dead." Danny said.

"What?" Taylor and I demanded in unison.

"I think… I'm not sure." Danny's fists were clenched and he was looking at the floor. "She's definitely not here anymore. Furthermore, the path to Byrgenwerth is closed."

"What!?" Taylor demanded. "Repeat that!"

"The last I heard, the way to Byrgenwerth is to be closed. That it is not to be opened for any reason. I tried to tell Annette, but I couldn't find her in time. I've visited the gate. It's closed."

"But… But…" Taylor was looking at her feet. "Mom… Byrgenwerth…" She was crying.

Danny wasn't moving. I went to Taylor and pulled her into a hug. The blows against her were twofold compared to what I felt. She genuinely wanted to be a scholar, even if she didn't admit it. That the dream was torn away moments after learning about Mom… I needed to be strong for her. She didn't return the hug, but she did sink into the embrace.

"Gascoigne." Danny said. I looked at him without breaking the hug with Taylor. "I'm going to teach you to hunt."

I stared at the man. He was a shell now, just pure anger in human form. I could tell. It wasn't much different from how I felt.

"Good." I said.

~loss~

"You're quite good." An older man congratulated me as I ripped my axe out of a yharnamite with fur growing on his elongated arm. There were four more like him all around me.

"You could have helped." I told him as I started checking the blade of my axe. It had been Danny's once, it was my responsibility to look after it.

The older man was wearing yellow hunter garb, I hadn't seen anything like it. He had a trifold hat that was reminiscent of the hawklike ones that the hunters of the workshop used. There was a hunter pistol and a saw cleaver on his belt, marking the man as a hunter.

"I arrived too late, I'm afraid." He chuckled. "Not that you needed my help, of course. Call me Henryk." He extended a hand.

"Call me Father Gascoigne." I shook his hand.

Henryk seemed surprised, which was normal for me in introductions. "Father? That's not a title that's used in the Healing Church."

"It's a term from a far off land." I explained. "I'm not originally from Yharnam."

"Bold of you to say that so freely."

I chuckled and gave a wide, toothy smile. "Us Heberts are vicious folk. Both my sister and me can fight tooth and nail to protect ourselves."

"You have a sister? What's her name?"

"Taylor. She killed a beast that broke through the window once with nothing but a fire poker, a kitchen knife, and all the chairs in the house."

Henryk whistled approvingly. "You'll have to introduce her to my daughter, Viola. She's about your age, and could learn a thing or two from your sister."

I felt pride at his compliment. He was good, I was already warming to him. "And what will Taylor learn from Viola? My sister is something of a scholar and says that relationships need to have a push and a pull."

"Some manners, from how you describe it." He said.

I laughed. Taylor could use some manners. Maybe some friendship would give her a reason to start singing again.

"Say, Father, should we hunt as a pair?" Henryk proposed. "Sometimes beasts can get crafty. It's good to have someone watch your back."

I considered the offer. It made sense.

"Only if you can keep up." I decided.

Henryk gave a chuckle. "You say that now, but I'm going to make you eat those words before the night is out."

~friendship~

"Gascoigne." Henryk said, gaining my attention.

I looked at him. There was worry seeped into his eyes, more than usual. It was aging the man, there were already grey hairs in his dark hair. He was looking down the street. I followed his gaze and saw the Hebert house. The incense was still lit.

That was strange, Taylor should have put it away by now. No sense in leaving it burning past sunrise. Better to save it for the next night of the hunt. We approached and I put the incense out without looking at it. The door was open. No, there was no door. Something was wrong.

I gripped my axe and blunderbuss and cautiously walked in. Henryk followed after me.

I checked downstairs first and found bodies. They were all Yharnamites, and only some of them showed signs of transforming into beasts. The methods of death varied, with slash wounds just as common as piercings of the heart, with some bullet wounds in fatal places. There were five of them dead in the kitchen and dining room. There was a sixth with his head through the window and a kitchen knife in the back of his neck.

Already I was guessing at what happened. This wasn't a beast, even with some of the Yharnamites starting their transformations. Whatever happened here, these men were killed by an incarnation of the devil. One that had broken all the chairs. I was beginning to think that devil was my sister.

I couldn't think for the life of me why, though.

"Nothing but corpses down here." Henryk said.

I nodded. "None of them are Taylor."

"There's blood dripping down the stairs."

There was indeed blood dripping down the stairs. Not dripped, dripping. Whoever was bleeding up there might still be alive. I checked to make sure I had a blood vial as I slowly walked up, now cautious of a beast in my own home.

I saw what was upstairs and cried. My weapons clattered to the ground and Henryk swore as the blunderbuss impacted the floor, and then again when my axe tumbled past him. I wasn't focused on him, though. I was stepping past the seven other bodies that had fallen in our bedrooms to get to the one that mattered. Two of them were dead in Taylor's room. One had a cracked skull against the railing of the stairs and a bullet hole in his chest, and the remaining four were scattered around my room.

She was sitting near a window there. I rushed over and lifted her arm, pressing my fingers against her wrist to find it cold and with no pulse. With a cry, I pulled out the blood vial and jabbed it into Taylor's cold leg.

Nothing. She was dead.

There were dozens of spent vials in the room from blood ministration, and I knew what some of the vials had been used for. Taylor's dress was tattered, with large portions of it missing, and several cuts on the arms and chest that revealed the flawless skin beneath. The only explanation was that she had been attacked and managed to heal while fending the attackers off. After she had been overwhelmed, they tortured her.

Taylor liked to sing, so her neck was bruised and broken. She had been choked until she suffocated, then her neck had been snapped for good measure. Almost the entirety of her front was exposed. Someone had burned letters into her skin. I wasn't the greatest with them, but I knew the word that had been burned from her breast to her leg.

**OUTSIDER**

I held Taylor close and my body shook. Henryk placed a hand on my shoulder. Tears streamed down my face but I didn't scream or shout. I couldn't. The men that did this to her would know I was coming if I did.

~despair~

I roared my laughter at the night sky. This was utter madness.

"_What's so funny?_" Taylor demanded. It was like stepping back in time.

She couldn't see how insane this was. If I was seeing her, I was totally insane. Then I remembered the fact that tonight was a night of the hunt and snapped back to focus.

"I had a feeling this night was different… but this… Oh, this… tonight is a sickened hunt unlike any other..."

If the scene that still haunted my dreams was coming out to taunt me, then yes. Tonight was _sickened_. _Diseased to the core._

"_Why's that?_" Taylor asked, her tone _so familiar_.

"Heh..." I chuckled. "Don't worry. _I'll put you back in your grave._"

~BLOOD SONG~

Henryk brought Viola to the burial. I didn't bring anyone. I said the words that my faith required of me and dropped the first clump of dirt onto my sister's coffin. Viola dropped the next. Henryk dropped the third. Then Henryk and I shoveled the rest of the dirt onto the grave.

We stood away and let Viola say her words to Taylor. The two of them were friends- had been friends. Viola had spoken to Taylor in a way that I never could. The two women had shared things I was never made aware of, and I was going to respect that privacy now that Taylor was dead.

After Viola was done I said my words. My personal ones, not influenced by teachings. I didn't say much. There was an apology in there, along with a promise to repay the deed to the ones that were responsible. Not much else.

Henryk didn't say any words, but he unveiled a music box that played Taylor's favourite song. He told Viola and I to get home before the hunt started. 'Home' meant something different now. The place where Taylor had been killed was haunted, and not only for me. It was sold for a pittance, and Henryk had offered his guest room until I could find my feet.

Viola spent most of her time at home as well, now that her friend was no longer inviting her out. She, like Taylor, hadn't spent much time courting men, and had spurned the men that chased after her. With Taylor, I credited that to her just being my weird older sister, but I couldn't tell why Viola acted that way.

Perhaps Henryk was interfering until he found someone that he approved of. I had, in the past, mused that he was trying to set me up with Viola. It had been a joke between Taylor and I.

That night I found that it wasn't actually that much of a joke.

~love~

"_You killed Viola!_" Taylor screamed at me.

"No!" I yelled, hitting something to vent my rage. I pointed my blunderbuss at the man I had hit thirty times. "_They_ killed her. I found her, dead, with those crows congratulating themselves for killing an outsider. She's Yharnam born! They killed my wife, so I killed them!"

It was just like that time… I had found her already cold. I stared at Taylor, apologies racing through my mind.

"It's enough to drive a man mad…" _I was mad._ "Yes… I suppose this night is a mad one… I'm talking to you… aren't I?" _Why is it you?_ _Why so soon after Viola?_

Taylor giggled. She was mad too.

I let out a sighing laugh. "Sing to me, Taylor." I asked for the child in me that wanted to hear her sing once more. I could almost hear it if I listened hard enough.

I gave myself to the song and the sweet blood sang along with it.

_It smelled beautiful._

~MELODY OF BLOOD~

The notes of the song changed. Before they played to the tune of my axe bisecting beasts and Yharnamites too far gone to save. Now the melody reminded me of- **NO I CAN'T REMEMBER THIS**

**MY MIND WILL TEAR ITSELF APART**

**STOP**

**PLEASE STOP**

~**melody** **OF **family~

"What should we call her?" Viola asked me, cradling the little babe in her arms.

"Annette." I said instantly. I don't know why Viola asked that question, we had already discussed it until the sun came up several times. Danny if it was a boy, Annette if it was a girl.

"You're Annette." Viola cooed, tapping Annette's nose with her finger. Annette giggled happily. "Say hi to your dad."

I took Annette when she was offered to me, carefully holding her head with one hand. She was so small. I was overwhelmed as I stared at her happy face. Annette was incredibly cute now that she had stopped screaming. She had the Hebert mouth as well, I noticed.

~my mom~my daughter~

"_Gascoigne!_" Taylor yelled. **PLEASE STOP TALKING** "_Think of your little girl!_" **I CAN'T LISTEN TO YOU** "_You have a little girl at home!_" **SING FOR ME PLEASE I CAN'T STAND THE SILENCE** "_She's still alive! She needs you!_" **DON'T TALK ABOUT HER I DON'T DESERVE THIS**

~**BLOODBLOODBLOODBLOOD**~

"What did we decide on?" Viola asked me playfully.

"Danny if it's a boy," I answered reflexively. This wasn't the first time Viola had asked, she drew some kind of satisfaction from it. "Taylor if it's a girl."

~my sister reborn~she has the Hebert mouth~

"_You can't lose yourself like this._" **WHAT DO YOU KNOW **"_More than you think._" **THEN LET ME SEE WHAT THEY DID TO YOU** Taylor frowned. "_What who did to me?_"

Silence. There was no music anymore, but the silence wasn't deafening. It had all clicked. This wasn't Taylor. This was an imposter. It was wearing my sister's face to the end. She… it didn't even have both arms. The wound was wrong.

"Hah…" I laughed at myself. No reason to hold on anymore. "I see… **Too proud to show your real face, eh…**"

~AaAaAaRrRrRrRgGgGgG!~

**Music assaulted me. Taylor's favourite melody tortured me while Taylor's imposter tore into me. I tried to kill her, honour my sister, but she was too fast. Music kept holding me back. Memories of **_**S**_**O**_**M**_**ET**_**HI**_**N**_**G **_**I couldn't have anymore. Then Taylor's imposter vanished, she was too far away. Then I felt my skin break.**

**It broke in another spot moments later.**

**And then again.**

**And again.**

**And again. **

**So many times.**

**When I finally slipped away I reached for the moon.** _I asked for forgiveness, I think._


	14. 2 Designate 1

[Designate]

"It's all your fault!"

I ignored the accusation like I had with the fifteen before him and smashed the Yharnamite's face in. The streets were wet with blood, and I was the one responsible for it. These men may have succumbed to the beastly plague, but I was the one who made the decision to cut them down. I practiced ruthless efficiency, swarming anyone who entered my range and having all my bugs put them off balance before killing them off personally.

"Outsider!" Another yelled.

I prioritised him.

There was a trail of bodies behind me and I didn't at all feel guilty about it. It was difficult to tell if that was me no longer caring, or the echoes of the ones I killed encroaching on my true feelings. The thought made me pause, and a Yharnamite who was getting close enough to actually hit me got swarmed while I thought in it. I dropped something from my pocket before moving on and cutting the Yharnamite's head off.

A haunting melody began to play and I felt a little bit better. For a moment I panicked, since there wasn't the sensation of anything receding from my mind. Whatever this feeling was, it wasn't the echoes of the people I killed whispering to me. It was something else. What the music did do was bring a memory that wasn't mine to bear. I homed in on it, and then rejected it. Stopping the music as I did. After that, I felt more like myself.

Now I was recalling the thought process that lead me to this. I glanced back at the dog I'd killed three times now. Doll had commented on the phenomenon of the returning beasts, but all that amounted to was acknowledging how other hunters had mentioned similar details of their hunts.

Apparently the street level beasts returned no matter how many times they were killed. The 'prey' died permanently, with prey being the objects of the hunt. I took that to mean the ones that turned into silver light and then into a lamp upon death. What differentiated beasts and prey, which was a terrible word to use for them because the 'prey' were usually the most dangerous beasts, was apparently importance.

That was Doll's best guess. I didn't think it was so simple and took the matter to Gehrman, waking up the old man this time because I didn't want to wait for answers. He said much the same, but he did add that when the hunt concluded beasts and prey both would be dead.

This place had a horrible fascination with death. At least now I recognised that I wasn't the only one avoiding it for the time being. Each of the men I killed would return to life the next time I died or returned to the Hunter's Dream. That was a lot of people this time. Beasts, too.

I finally reached the end of the road. There was a gate that needed opening, but I was on the side to open it. Then I killed the three Yharnamites on the other side. After that I made sure that each and every body along the bloody swath I just made was an actual carcass. The route took me to a windowsill. To a conversation I was dreading.

I hesitated. Then I tapped the window.

"Hello Miss hunter. Have you found my mum?" Little Taylor asked.

"_I'm sorry._" I told her.

Quiet hung between us.

"Why do you sound so sad?" The young girl asked.

I crouched down in front of the window and took off the hat that the little ones had given me upon waking up in the dream. The red jeweled brooch was already in my hand, but I was hesitating. Little Taylor deserved to know. But to be told both her father and her mother were dead at the same time. That she had been orphaned in one night. That I- her faux aunt- was responsible for one of those deaths.

She'd be destroyed.

None of that even took into account where little Annette was. My bugs were combing the buildings, looking for anyone that looked like they could be little Taylor's older sister. But there hadn't been any luck so far.

I was taking so long thinking on it that little Taylor opened the window a bit to get a better look at me. The squeak of the window made me look up and I met little Taylor's eyes.

"You look really familiar, Miss hunter." She said.

"_That's what I thought when I first saw you._" I told her, making little Taylor frown.

"Um. Okay? Um, what I meant is that daddy has a picture of someone that looks like you. It's very pretty. He keeps it with him and he shows me sometimes."

Oof. I hadn't found anything like that when I was looting the graveyard where Gascoigne died. It was a reason to go back and search for it, but that would have to wait. This needed to come first.

"Why do you have my daddy's axe?" Little Taylor asked.

I froze.

"That's my daddy's axe, Miss hunter. It's my daddy's so why do you have it?" Little Taylor's voice was wavering again. I could see realisation start to dawn on her face.

Gascoigne's blunderbuss and axe, also once Danny's if the memory was accurate, had both been collected when I went back to the graveyard. I had decided to stow the saw cleaver for the time being. It served me well, but with Gascoignes memories at the surface the axe just felt better. It was also neither here nor there. Not what I should be focusing on.

It was heartbreaking and wrong, but I pocketed the red jeweled brooch and pulled out some paper I'd stolen from the workshop. I held a finger up to little Taylor and mimed writing something down.

"You're going to write?" She asked and I nodded. "But I don't know my letters very well."

I made to lay the paper on the ground, but paused. "_I can't tell you like this._"

"What was it you just said?"

I mimed writing again.

"Um. Okay, I'll try."

Little Taylor sounded like she was on the verge of tears. I sat and scratched out a message on the paper as quickly and as neatly as I could, keeping the script bigger than I normally would so it would be easier for little Taylor to read.

The message was simple. _Your dad forgot himself._ A new line. _I'm so sorry._

It took little Taylor a minute of sounding everything out to get through the first line. She looked to me after finishing the word 'himself'.

"Did he really?" Little Taylor asked.

I just nodded and let her get started on the next line.

"I… Em… this means the letter go together, so aiem?" She looked at me.

I shook my head and tapped my chest.

"Me?"

_Sort of. _I wobbled my hand.

"Um. Ess… then oh… It's… so?" Little Taylor checked with me. I nodded. "Then it does it again. Then are are. Umm... What's that one?" She pointed at the y.

I considered how to tell her without being able to talk, then eventually pulled the paper closer to me and wrote '_wxyz_' on it. Then I looked at little Taylor and attempted to hum a familiar tune.

"_Hm hm, hm hm, hm hm hm._"

She was a little confused until I continued.

"_Hm hm, hm hm, hm hm hm hm hm._"

"The alphabet!" Little Taylor got it. I was just glad I could communicate _something._ She started going through it herself. " G… um…"

"_H._" I tried to help.

"H I J K…" She got stuck again.

I was surprised that succeeded, so it took me a moment to realise I should keep helping. "_L_."

" P!" Little Taylor got a bit excited getting that particular sequence out. "Then, um… Q…"

"_R._"

"R S, T U V," I pointed at the next letters as she said them. "W X, Y! It's Y." She pulled the paper closer and peered at the word she was trying to comprehend. "So-er-er-I?"

I shook my head and pulled the paper to me. I wrote an E, then pushed it back to her. I tapped the Y and then the E.

"So-er-er-e?" Little Taylor said with a frown on her face. I nodded. "Me so soerer…" She trailed off.

"_I'm so sorry._" I repeated.

Little Taylor wiped her eyes. "Daddy forgot himself… He said he might. He told me what could happen but I didn't think it could happen to him. Dad and Grandad were supposed to look out for each other, that's what mommy said."

Damnit, now I was blinking away tears. I took the paper back and dipped my quill.

"So if you're apologising, then he was a beast. And you…"

I pushed the paper back with a new question. Just a word and a question mark. _Name?_

Little Taylor grabbed at the distraction. "Nn, ah, mm, ii. Namee? Oh. Name. What's this?" She was pointing at the question mark.

I waved my hand and pointed at her. I already knew what her name was, but I didn't want to come across too strangely. If I was going to look after little Taylor in the place of my not-brother, then she needed to trust me.

"Um…"

I tapped the word and pointed at her again.

"Oh. You were talking about my name. Daddy told me not to talk to strangers, but you're a hunter and you… and you do what's… needed…" Little Taylor ducked beneath the windowsill. I stood so that I might see her. She was crouched with her hands over her face and her knees were next to her hands. She was so small.

I didn't know what to do. Is this what Danny felt like with me?

Little Taylor came back up to the windowsill and my heart just dropped. There were tears coming down her cheeks, but I hadn't heard a sob from her yet. She was tough.

"Um. You found my dad and you did what hunters do, so… so you're not a stranger." Little Taylor sounded like she was on the verge of breaking. "Um. My name is Taylor Hebert. It's nice to meet you." Little Taylor even gave a lopsided curtsy.

I made a show of raising my eyebrows in surprise, then wrote down three words.

"I know this word." Little Taylor wiped her nose and pointed at the second one. "This is my name." I nodded. "And this is that one. So this one is tee, oh, oh."

"Oo." I made the sound. If simple letters had made it through, then maybe that sound could as well.

"T-oo?" Little Taylor looked at me. I nodded. "Me Taylor too?"

I nodded again and crouched so our faces were level. There was a memory near the surface, one where Gascoigne had measured his strength to give his daughter a playful tug on the ear after she did something good. That time she had found the music box and given it to me before I left to hunt. I let the memory take over and reached past the threshold of the window. Little Taylor shrunk away at first, so I paused. After a moment I resumed moving, but more slowly, and she didn't shrink away.

My fingers found her ear and tugged lightly. Then I retreated, stood at my full height, and pulled the window as open as it could go.

Little Taylor was stunned, no doubt reliving the moment as vividly as I was. Then a harrowing moan filled the air.

"Auntiee!" Little Taylor rushed me and wrapped her arms as far around my waist as they could go through the bars. Her tiny arms held on with all the strength they could muster, and the small force locked me there as she cried.

With that, the memory fled. There was no Gascoigne whispering in my ear to look after his daughter, to return as the long dead aunt and be there when no one else could. These were echoes of memories, not even clear ones. Tiny fragments of lives that probably didn't even make up one percent of who they were, shattered and siphoned away in one of six vague ways, just to make me strong.

This was undoubtedly me. _I_ was the one who was deciding to look after little Taylor. _I chose_ to try and make up for the terrible hurt I'd done to her. I didn't know where little Annette was, but little Taylor couldn't stay here. My bugs had been nosy, and there wasn't too much incense left in this place. There was enough for a time, but she'd run out eventually.

She needed to get to Iosefka's clinic. I would take her there.

But for the time being, I was trapped by a crying girl hugging me for dear life through some window bars.

~Drip~Drip~

***t*n* ********

We did some more text to speech communication before we went. I asked if little Taylor was alone. She was, which I already knew. I asked for family and friends, and that's what finally got her to tell me about little Annette. When I asked where she was though, little Taylor didn't know.

Then she started asking me how I could possibly be here, since I was dead. I humoured her distraction and wrote the word 'alive' which turned into another short lesson for her to get the v right. When she was done I tapped my chest and smiled. Little Taylor did that thing kids always do and tried to go down the rabbit hole of why? why? why? But I insisted by writing: _Later._ New line. _Safety first._

I wasn't sure I could tell her the truth, anyway. My side was too convoluted to write down succinctly, and it didn't seem like she had the details of the other Taylor's death. That I could understand. Gascoigne seemed like the type of person who wouldn't traumatise his children by telling that story anyway, which was a point towards me coming to terms with this not-relationship.

Right before we left the house I knelt in front of little Taylor. She was wearing a faint red dress. It was light enough that it almost seemed pink. Her hair was messy, so I made it neat. I made sure my hand was clean of blood first. She had white ribbons in her hair that I ended up needing her help with, on account of my hand. When that was done, I had her face me and help me put a beautiful red jeweled brooch on her dress.

She shut down when I pulled it out, but I didn't know any better way to break it to her. If I didn't get it out of the way, it was going to eat at me. I couldn't have something like that on my conscience. Little Taylor held the brooch as I got the clasp done. When it was done, I wrapped her in a one and a half armed hug.

After a minute, she put her arms around me as well. A memory of Gascoigne swept by and I kissed my not-daughter on the head, which signalled to her that it was time to move. The hug was mutually broken, I took her hand with my own, and we walked out the door.

I stopped, confusing little Taylor. Then I pointed with my stump.

My swarm was hiding at the moment. When I pointed, a few cockroaches and flies carried the music box little Taylor had given me, with another few bugs winding it up. Little Taylor shrieked and fled behind me. I didn't let her escape my hand, and waited for her to calm down a bit.

"Auntie." Little Taylor had decided to call me that. I wasn't sure how I felt about it yet. "Can we get away from those bugs, please?"

I released her hand and the handle of the music box at the same time. As the haunting melody pierced the otherwise quiet air, I gently pushed little Taylor to where she could see the show I was putting on. She frowned when she heard the music, then squealed again when she saw bugs moving in patterns.

I had flies that were bobbing in time with certain notes. Some followed one particular chime, while some more followed another. I had groups for each note and had them pretty well mixed. Anyone looking would see a clear pattern there. Cockroaches were running in circles, and were varying speed based on the tempo of the song. A good host of the rest of my swarm was arranged in letters spelling out my name.

"I don't like this." Little Taylor said. "Why are they doing that?"

I nudged her and directed her to where several beetles, flies, ants, and more were spelling out our name.

"Taylor?" She read out. "But how?"

The Taylor bugs rearranged to point at me.

Wide eyes turned up at me. Her wide mouth caught between amazement and disgust. "You?"

I nodded.

"You're really something, auntie."

A trace of a smile gathered at my lips. I had the bugs that weren't performing retreat while pulling the music box closer. Taylor backed away as they approached.

"They're icky." She told me.

I chuckled and had them maintain a distance from us, but I kept them playing the music. Then I took little Taylor's hand and started walking her to Iosefka's clinic. I purposefully took her around the far side of the fountain where I slew the brute and ripped out his insides.

Before we passed the burning beast pyre, I had the bugs spell out '_cover eyes_'. It took a few minutes, but Taylor eventually got it and covered her eyes with the arm that didn't have a hand holding mine. Then I walked my not-niece down the street where I must have killed thirty men.

My swarm was kept near the fringes of my range for the entire walk. Normally I would have had to slow my gait, but this time I was slow anyway to accommodate little Taylor's short legs. Quickly enough, we were walking into Iosefka's clinic and I tugged on Taylor's arm to let her know she was safe to uncover them.

I don't know if she peeked, and I hoped she didn't. She wasn't acting like she'd just walked past thirty corpses, but she had also just been told her mom and dad were dead. What was someone supposed to act like when they were told that. When my Annette died, I shut down, I cried, and it took me a long time to figure out how to act again. Taylor seemed to be doing what I did, but her situation was so much worse.

And she was so much younger too.

"This place is very… scary." Little Taylor said. At least she was talking. It would help her cope.

We were in the lower operating room, and I kind of agreed. It was covered in a bloodstain that never seemed to go away and it was where the first beast I killed had killed me twice. Thankfully, the beast itself hadn't ever come back.

I moved a lamp to an operating table and used the light to see as I wrote another message. I didn't show Taylor, this one wasn't for her.

I took Taylor's hand again and lead her up the stairs where I knocked on Iosefka's door.

"Hello, good hunter." Iosefka's smooth voice came through the door just fast enough to be unnerving. "She's safe with me now, I presume you're to thank? The treatment is going well, stabilized, for the most part. Fascinating, really…"

I peered through the window at Iosefka's face. She was talking about the old woman I'd given the note to, and was deadly serious. Which meant something didn't add up.

"We had an agreement, I haven't forgotten. Here you are. With a bonus." Iosefka handed a familiar orange vial through the broken pane."

I accepted the vial, only hesitating enough that I kicked myself for being a goddamn addict. She passed through two blue bottles that I didn't know the purpose of. It wasn't the time to ask any questions, so I just stowed them away. Then I handed something through the window myself, the message I had just authored.

_A little girl needs someplace safe._

Iosefka hummed as she took her time reading my scrawl. "And where is this little girl?"

"Are you talking about me?" Little Taylor asked.

"Ah, is that the one? One moment, hunter." Iosefka stepped away from the door and I heard the sounds of bustling. I looked through the window to see Iosefka busily going back and forth in the room, sometimes disappearing further into the building, and always carrying something different. Everything she carried was something I didn't recognise, but Iosefka was a tinker. So… fair.

Then Iosefka was back at the door. "I apologize, I just had to ensure that any infection would not travel farther than this room. All for the patients, you see. All for the patients."

"Are you going to leave me with her?" Little Taylor asked in a small voice.

"_I'm sorry._" I told her, knowing she wouldn't comprehend the words, but she'd feel the tone behind them. _I don't know anywhere safer._

"It's nothing to apologise for." Iosefka said as she turned a lock in the door.

"I don't want to stay here. It's creepy and dark."

Iosefka pushed the door open. "Come here, young one. There is nothing to fear." Her voice was an attempt at soothing, but _far _too eager.

I reflexively pushed little Taylor behind me and Iosefka's creepy tone was not why I reacted that way. The moment the door opened, it was like a veil had lifted from the world. There were bugs inside the clinic that I hadn't been aware of until the door opened, and some of them were hibernating.

The only hibernating bugs in Yharnam were the ones I made hibernate. They weren't infesting the clothes of an old lady, they were dumped in a pile in the corner of a room at the fringe of my range. Yet I couldn't find any old lady at all. What I _did _see was in that same room, through the eyes of my bugs, were two blue creatures that were very much _not_ human.


	15. 2 Designate 2

"Is something the matter, hunter?" Iosefka questioned, a note of irritation pervading her voice.

I made sure that little Taylor was close and behind me. "_Those things in there. Tell me what they are._"

"What things?" Iosefka asked, then clicked her tongue. "Sometimes it's like you're almost making sense when you speak, but it's difficult to pick out the words from the nonsense."

I decided to keep it simple. Little Taylor had heard me when I was just saying letters, maybe single words would work here. "_Blue._" I bit my mouth shut. "_Creatures._"

"Ah." Iosefka straightened her posture. "I thought I recognised the moonlit scents. How did you figure that out?"

"_Bugs._" As I told her my not so secret secret, several of my minions were landing on Iosefka or crawling up her clothes.

"And this phenomenon would be you as well, then…" Iosefka stepped backwards, but I didn't relax. Nor did I stop putting bugs on her. She met my eyes. "Things need not change. They have been saved. I did the saving. I could continue to do the saving. You could continue doing the rescuing." Her eyes darted to the tiny girl hiding behind me.

_Fuck that._ "_Fuck you._"

There was a beat of quiet.

"I'm sorry? I didn't catch that."

Without taking my eyes off of Iosefka, I leaned my head towards little Taylor and whispered, "_Run._"

Little Taylor's hand gripped my own tightly. "Auntie?"

"_Run. Home. Now._"

Taylor frowned. "Auntie?"

"_Go!_" I stage whispered urgently, but she still held on.

"Moon scented hunter," Iosefka said. "You have brought that little child here to be saved. Please let me save her."

I pushed little Taylor back and stepped away from Iosefka. "_No._"

"You will leave, then? I could continue my work here without your assistance. It is unfortunate, but I can make the necessary ends meet."

"_No._" I didn't want to leave until I discovered the fate of the old woman. The fate that _I _sent her to.

Iosefka sighed and reached for something concealed in her clothes. I caught on to the tells quickly and turned to hug little Taylor, shielding her with my body. Two back to back cracks sounded behind me, and I was thrown down the stairs. The first impact hit my square in the back and the second hit me in the shoulder as I tumbled down the stairs.

My bugs started biting the moment before Iosefka pulled the trigger. I rolled halfway down the stairs with a frightened child in my arm, and when we finally stopped I adjusted my hold on little Taylor, picked her up, and hastened down the staircase. The bullets in my back slowed me down some, and the unresponsive child in my arms worried me.

Iosefka was nearing the edge of my range when she finished reloading. "It didn't have to be this way."

My bugs tracked her as she aimed and I dodged when she pulled the trigger of her double barrelled rifle. A fly got in the way of the first hammer and perished, but she corrected her aim when I dodged and the second fly missed the hammer.

It hit the shoulder of my stump, but it still sent me sprawling at the bottom of the stairs. I sprawled sideways, so little Taylor wouldn't get crushed under me. My hand fumbled for a blood vial as me and my bugs gave the child I just shielded from three gunshots a once over. None of her arms were bending ways they shouldn't, and there wasn't any blood spilling out of her.

That was good, at least. I jammed the blood vial into my own leg and fought to hold back the giggles. As it was still draining, I wrapped Taylor back in my grip and rolled out of Iosefka's line of sight.

"I've never worked on a hunter before, I realise." Iosefka spoke as she advanced down the staircase. Her slow and measured footsteps made little Taylor shiver.

"_Taylor._" I said, holding her face the best I could.

"I'm s-scared, auntie."

I tugged on her ear. "_Run._" Then I gently pushed her away. "_Home._" I retrieved a blood vial and pushed it into her hands. "_Run._"

"But auntie, she's going to kill you."

"_No._"

"I must admit, I feel a little excited." Iosefka confessed, shaking my confidence. "Gods know I haven't worked on a moon scented hunter."

Little Taylor tugged on my sleeve. "Don't leave me too."

I handled my axe with familiar ease. I tapped my chest like I had before. "_Alive._" Really, I was trying to say that I would come back to life if I died. But that was difficult to say in single word sentences that I wasn't sure was even getting across properly. Then I strode around the corner and started walking up the staircase towards Iosefka.

If I died here, then I would return to the dream. If little Taylor died… I wouldn't let that happen.

Facing an opponent head on like this was stupid. Especially since Iosefka seemed to have that incessant vitality that permeated Yharnam and let things ignore how I was making a literal swarm eat her. But my aim was not to win a fight with Iosefka, it was to make time for little Taylor to run away. If I died, then little was lost on my end because I'd simply return to finish the job.

When I walked to meet Iosefka in what was one of the stupidest maneuvers I'd ever pulled, I saw that my swarm was not acting as it should. They attacked as I ordered them to, but they did so a good half foot away from Iosefka, and they attacked each other instead of the insane woman.

I made them stop and simply approach the white haired woman. They got close enough that they almost made contact with her skin, then turned around and kept moving. The ones that were acting strangely didn't perceive themselves doing it, which was why I hadn't clued into this sooner. There was a shroud around Iosefka similar to the one in her clinic.

"_Fucking tinkers._"

"I wonder…" Iosefka stopped walking and stared at me. She had a cane in her hands that she was holding like a sword. I had bugs inspect it and found it to be bladed and segmented. It was a weapon. When she stopped, I did as well and stared her down.

This wasn't to win or to kill. This was to delay the fight for as long as possible to let Taylor get away. If Iosefka wanted to talk, that was perfect.

"Have you been touched by the great ones?" Iosefka asked.

I didn't respond straight away. In part because of the neutered alien in my head, but really because it was a delaying tactic.

"_Yes._" I spoke as I watched little Taylor start to run through the eyes of my bugs. That was good, but I didn't let myself relax just yet.

"Really?" Iosefka leaned forwards, very interested. "And tell me, what was that like?"

I purposefully waited until she started getting impatient. "_Terrible. I killed it._" Little Taylor was out of my range now.

"And there you go, back into the shroud of nonsense." Iosefka sighed. "I thought perhaps you had been given a gift beyond even what I possess. Now I see that you would not know what to do if you received any such blessing."

I tensed, but her finger wasn't moving to her trigger yet. While her aura might redirect bugs away from her, I could still have flies hover around her and give me an alternate perspective. Bugs could still crawl all over her clothes and weigh her down, so I was having them do just that. If I was lucky, she would at least get creeped out by it.

"I know you understand me. But that doesn't change the fact that you're an oblivious fool."

"_I don't care._"

"Your standoffishness gives me the impression that you will not depart until you exact some form of misguided justice. Fulfilling the purpose of the hunt, then?" Iosefka waited for me to speak.

I only spoke to cut her off. Give little Taylor as much time as possible. "_Fuck the hunt._"

"And you praise the hunt like all the other blood addled oafs." Iosefka sighed and walked backwards up one step. She stared at me with caution. "I do wish I could understand your words. And I do mean _understand_ them."

"_Me too._"

"For you see. There is a chance, a very small chance, that you are imparting gifts with every word."

"_I'm not._"

"But I'll never know for sure, hunter." She hummed. "A shame."

"_Blue._" I bit out.

Iosefka clicked her tongue again. "Of course, we didn't finish discussing that. Though, it occurs to me that you have refused to continue giving me your assistance and therefore there is no reason for us to continue this discourse."

I stared at her. "_Talk._"

"Hmm…" The tip of Iosefka's bladed cane bounced between two invisible points in the air. "I think not."

The hammers of her rifle fell on two flies that became corpses. She looked down in surprise at her weapon as I closed the distance between us, leaping forward with my arm raised to deliver an overhead swing. The axe sunk into her shoulder and sprayed blood on the side of her head and onto mine as well.

I ripped it out and followed up by slashing her across the waist, drawing blood for a second time. Iosefka stumbled up the stairs at just the right moment to avoid losing blood for the third time. Her gun arm was useless now, being the one I had nearly severed. As I approached to make a third slash on Iosefka, her cane whipped out of nowhere and slashed through my upper body. Part of it going through my _breast_.

I growled as I pressed the assault, raising my stump to get in the way of Iosefka's next slash. More of my blood splashed as I dragged the axe through the floorboards and harnessed unnatural strength, then it hit Iosefka square in the chest and the force of the blow threw her up the stairs. She landed painfully and rolled down a half turn with a soft moan.

Not a painful moan. A moan of _pleasure_.

"_Crazy woman._" I dropped the axe and let the bugs underneath me lift it so I could easily pick it back up. Meanwhile, I retrieved a blood vial and jabbed it in without ceremony. My eyes were on Iosefka the entire time, watching as she found her feet with _far_ too much ease for someone who had just taken three wounds that were meant to be lethal.

"You fool!" She hissed as she picked her cane and rifle back up and darted away and into the clinic.

I made a split second decision and ran after her. This had started out as a delaying tactic to give little Taylor enough time to run away. She was away, now I wanted to figure out what the deal was with the blue creatures. I had suspicions about that.

And maybe I wanted to kill Iosefka as well. She sounded like she wanted to 'save' little Taylor in the worst way, which big Taylor just wasn't going to let fly.

Iosefka tried to close the doors, but I had bugs blocking the door by sacrificing their bodies. It let me get there before she could close it properly and I ripped the doors open again. Iosefka cursed as she tried to shoot me again, only to find that more flies were suiciding to stop her from firing.

I swung at her from the door but Iosefka was slippery. She danced backwards and threw the gun to the ground. That was fine by me, I lunged forward to get as close as I could before swinging again, not wanting for her to just dance away again. I got lacerated up my axe arm for my trouble by the cane, and she moved to her side just soon enough to avoid my first swing.

That gave her enough time to start running further into the clinic. I went after her, but at a walking pace. The axe got dropped and I drew my pistol. I drew a shot, breathed out, and fired. Iosefka wasn't looking, so she didn't know to evade. The bullet hit her square between the shoulders and she fell forwards. Then she showed her inhuman vitality as she staggered without falling and made it to the next room.

I swore and dropped the gun so my bugs could reload it. My axe back in hand, I raced after Iosefka. The bugs that had infested her clothes hadn't been removed, and the veil over this place hadn't returned, which let me track her as she ran past the two blue creatures I had sensed. I followed, but slowed to inspect the creatures as I passed.

They were shorter than I was, with heads that were disproportionately sized to their bodies. Their shoulders came up to my waist, but the tops of their heads came all the way up to my neck. The eyes were where they would have been if the head was normal sized, the scalp was swollen and enlarged, and shifted as they moved.

The blue creatures had lighter blue spots spattered throughout their skin. When I glanced their way, they looked back at me, turning their heads and padding their small feet in place as I passed.

"_I'm here to help you._" I told them.

One turned away, spurning me. The other stepped forward with their arms held out in front of them. I stopped and put the axe between me and them. They didn't seem to register its existence and continued to approach. I was tense, but I didn't get the sense of hostility from this thing.

I kept the axe between it and me as it approached. It walked until it was against the blade, then continued reaching forwards until its abnormally long fingertips brushed against my shirt. Nothing happened. The blue creature dropped its arms and turned away.

I could tell it was sad.

"_Iosefka?_" I tested. It turned back to me and my stomach dropped. I couldn't kill the fake Iosefka now, which was a fucking shame. First I needed some answers as to what exactly that insane tinker had been getting up to. The creature that was Iosefka turned away when I didn't have anything else to say. I hefted my axe and got going.

Iosefka, the fake one, had fled up a staircase that lead to another operating room. Her clinic had several more that were empty, but the one she was rummaging around in was a dead end. My bugs were trying to get in her way and block her eyesight, but the woman still had that aura around her, and she seemed to have an innate knowledge of where everything she was looking for was.

I didn't bother being quiet. Instead of taking things slow and trying to get the drop on the white haired woman, I had my bugs make as much of a racket as they could and placed a good portion of them so they were obscuring the entrance. There was a bug I hadn't encountered before in the roof with Iosefka, which I almost glossed over before I remembered that Iosefka was a wet tinker. They nearly blended in with the swarm, but were different enough for me to pick them out.

It didn't have any senses I could make out, so I couldn't observe anything through it. I was only aware of its position by virtue of being aware of its biology. It had a strange shape, almost like a centipede, but it didn't have proper legs, and on the end that seemed like its head were six short tendrils that flexed subtly against nothing. Through its placement in relation to the rest of my swarm, I could tell that it was near where Iosefka was rummaging. When I tried to make it move, nothing happened.

Worrying.

I stepped through my swarm, watchful of any reaction from Iosefka. She finished looking through a drawer, a process that my bugs were interrupting, and moved on to another. Without hesitation, I walked up and confiscated her cane, which she had moved to her belt to free up a hand.

I threw the cane to the floor behind me, where my swarm was waiting to usher it out of her reach. Then I drew my gun and, because she seemed like she could survive mortal wounds like they were nothing, in addition to the fact that I no longer had any goodwill for her, shot Iosefka where her heart was when she turned to face me.

Then I dropped the gun too and pulled my axe out. Before I could swing, there was a buzzing at the edge of my consciousness and I saw Iosefka holding a slug out towards me. It wasn't the new bug I had sensed, this was something new. The slug was partially covered by the shroud, which was why I hadn't sensed it before, and it was different in a way that was similar to the other new bug.

It didn't feel anything. It just existed. Nothing, not even Iosefka's hand, registered on its sensorium. Yet, it was buzzing.

In an instant, the buzzing elevated to a level that would have been deafening if I was listening to it, and the air in front of the slug rippled. From where the air rippled, tentacles burst forth and slammed into me. The sheer strength of the impact threw me back to the other wall. I hit an operating table that my body snapped around, with half over and half under.

Then I fell to the ground where I found I couldn't move my legs. I pushed at the ground to roll myself and get a blood vial. My hands were trembling from injury, and my stomach was just a pit of nothing. I'd felt this before, it was just my body recognising that death was approaching, which counterintuitively slowed me down jabbing a blood vial into my leg.

I was so slow that the vial was kicked out of my hand the moment before I would have jabbed. Iosefka knelt next to me, taking her sweet time to get situated. It was irritating, and I was having bugs fly at her face, only to redirect the instant before impact. That just irritated me more, but I kept doing it because it might be irritating Iosefka.

"Moon scented hunter," Iosefka said, murmuring the words. She was talking to herself, not me. "Let us obtain a higher purpose. Let us leave behind the rabble of the streets and become… significant."

"_I am significant you bitch._" I grabbed at her sleeve, which was all I could reach.

"Now now, none of that." Iosefka waggled the slug that was still in her hand. It was then that I realised the tentacles had vanished. A temporary projection? It had beaten me down about as quickly as the Siberian would have.

I didn't care. "_You're a twisted madwoman. You're insane and I've spent years hunting someone much, much worse than you. Make no mistake Iosefka, I'm going to kill you._"

Iosefka made to stand but I held her down. "Please don't make me use it again. I might damage your body."

"_Do it._" I told her.

Iosefka's expression set. I knew she heard that.

"_Fucking do it. I'll come back and I'll kill you. That's my fucking curse. You better leave the girl alone, because then I'll have to vindicate what I'm going to do to you. It doesn't matter if you only kill me a little dead, or a lot dead, because I will come back and I will kill you. That's not a promise. That's not a curse, not on you. It's not an oath, either. It's simple. I. Will. Kill. You._" I purposefully spaced out the final words, since that seemed to help communication. I really wanted Iosefka to know what I was promising.

I'm not sure why Alexandria's speech came to mind in the moment. But it fit.

"There's no need to be so crass." Iosefka told me with a disappointed expression. The air around the slug rippled again, and moments later darkness welcomed me.

I was treated to Iosefka panicking as I disappeared in the dark mist. My last thought was of Taylor. I could only hope that it had been enough for her to get back home.

~drip~drip~drip~

o**h


	16. 2 Designate 3

I don't think I actually needed to bait Iosefka into killing me like that. Sure, it was painful. Dying always was. But the panic I'd seen in her eyes had been worth it. If she'd refused to kill me, I would've focused on the mark in the back of my mind and reawoken in the dream.

In retrospect, I probably should have done that instead of goading her into killing me. Now Iosefka had my echoes. If she reacted the same way the _Cleric Beast_ did, then I was going to be in trouble when I went to kill her for good.

That didn't matter right now.

I pounded on the hardwood door. "_Taylor!_" I waited three seconds, then started pounding again. "_Taylor!_" The door opened, making me miss it and stumble forward, almost tripping over the small girl hiding behind it. After finding my balance, I fell to my knees and wrapped little Taylor in my arm.

My bugs had told me she was there, but I didn't have enough right now to track her every move.

"Wrraagh!" The brute that like sneaking up on people around here was promptly blinded by a swarm that was half the density of my normal one. In my haste to get here, I hadn't dedicated the time I normally spent to meandering about and just adding bugs to the swarm. That being said, what I had was enough to blind this brute, and I was keeping track of it as I released little Taylor and checked her health.

Physically, she was fine barring scuffed knees at the worst. No bleeding. Mentally, the red eyes and disheveled hair suggested things were different.

"You're alive, auntie." Taylor said. "I was s-so scared you would leave… as well."

"_Can't._" I looked her in the eye. Then I tapped my belt. "_Vial?_"

"Do you want it back?" Taylor was keeping hers in her pocket, which I noticed when she reached for it. I stayed her hand. "Oh. Okay."

I cupped her chin and gently made her look at me as the brute charged into another wall outside of my range. He came back quickly and was promptly blinded again.

"_Are you well?_" I ventured.

All I got was a confused look. The brute came close again and Taylor yelped.

I pushed little Taylor indoors and pushed the door partially closed. "_Wait._" I drew my pistol and turned to the brute. Before doing anything I waited for Taylor to close the door, then I let the brute see me. He had this habit of charging at where I thought I was with his brick raised high and ready to pulverise.

I had this habit of tricking him into charging at a wall, giving him a concussion, then finishing him off with my axe.

Brute dealt with, I went back inside with Taylor and started communicating with her again. It took a long while, but I got her to understand the extended sentence '_I am going to find you somewhere safe, but I need to explore to find it._'

I didn't leave right away, of course. I'd like to think I made my mom proud when I ran little Taylor through all the letters of the alphabet, and then some words I could use to communicate things quickly. Taylor's head was spinning by the end of it, so I went to the kitchen and cooked up some meat and veggies using the old technology in the house. It took a little while to figure out, but I got it done.

That's when I realised I hadn't eaten since waking up in the dream for the first time. Even that had been days after my last meal. Yet I just wasn't hungry. Taylor made a face at my cooking when I presented it, so I made a face at her and we both ate. Not at the table, in a corner because all this built to a breaking point for Taylor and she hid to cry while I was cooking.

I didn't let her stay alone like that for long. My bugs delivered the music box to her while I tended to the meat.

A long time after that I stood to leave. A tiny hand on my coat made me pause.

"Please don't go." Little Taylor's voice was breathy and so, so quiet.

I crouched down in front of her and tugged her ear. Then I accepted the paper and quill my bugs were offering and wrote down two words for Taylor. While she was focused on that, I ruffled her hair, making her protest, then swept away from the house. Before I went, I topped up the incense in the window, using the last of what was there.

I had a good idea for a first place to look. Somewhere that the beasts wouldn't go.

In the house behind me, Taylor finished reading the message I left and hugged the paper to her chest.

_Stay strong._

~drip~drip~drip~

*e**nd ***

The chapel was as I left it. The state of disrepair was unchanged, there were a lot of unnerving statues still around, but that wasn't what I was looking for. First, the scent of incense was overpowering. I spied lanterns by each door, save for the one that was closed. That took a little longer to take in since the vast majority of my swarm hadn't been able to follow me inside.

The second thing I was looking for was the source of the sound I heard when I was leaving. My investigation quickly revealed a man sequestered away in a corner where he was wasting away. He was draped in tattered red cloth that seemed to have more substance than he did.

I said, "_Hello._" and he raised his head, the hood raising up like a snake.

"_Hello._" Another voice sounded from above me. It wasn't the squalid man.

I spun and looked up, gun already drawn. There was a second floor to the chapel, just a balcony that didn't have any readily apparent way to access it. The speaker was sitting on the stone railing of the balcony, and was resting their elbows on their knees as they looked down at me.

His face was half obscured by a scarf that wrapped his lower face, and a trifold hat covered everything else that wasn't his eyes. A long white feather curled back over the hat which, when coupled with the cape over one of his shoulders, gave a bombastic flair to the otherwise utilitarian outfit he was wearing.

It was all close fitting leather, with sheets of metal covering the parts of him that weren't needed for mobility, like his shins and forearms. On his back was a humongous sword that had no right being used as a weapon.

Point towards him being a parahuman. Specifically a brute, given by how thin his frame was and how lightly he was sitting there with that on his back. I backed away from both persons in the room, but didn't point the gun at the one up top just yet.

"_Who are you?_" I demanded.

"_Teilgean._" He responded. "_If I may ask for your name in return, one armed hunter?_"

"Who's there?" The man on the floor asked, looking around. "Who's talking?"

I gave the man on the railing another appraising look. His attire fit in with the other hunters I had met so far, but he was actually understanding me. Why?

"It's just me, chapel dweller." Teilgean spoke to the person kneeling on the floor. "Welcoming a guest, is all."

"Oh, honestly?" The… chapel dweller asked eagerly. They looked in my direction but missed. Blind? "Are you a hunter?"

"_Yes._" I answered cautiously.

"If you are, then please, if you find anyone still with their wits about them in your hunt, could you tell 'em that this here Oedon Chapel is safe haven for any and all. The incense wards off the beasts, you see. But you already knew that, didn't you. Hee hee…"

I looked up at the hunter on the balcony.

"_He asks that of all hunters that pass through here and actually stop to talk._" Teilgean explained. "_Just you this night, I think._"

"_It's too perfect._" I said. "_The last time I was told somewhere was safe, the person I sent there was transformed into a creature I haven't encountered before._"

Teilgean leaned back a little in surprise. "_You made it into Iosefka's?_"

"_You know about Iosefka?_"

"_Well hold on now._" Teilgean returned to his relaxed posture and gestured with a hand, palm flat and pointed at the ground. A calm down gesture. "_You still haven't introduced yourself. I'm not going to go spouting my mouth to anyone I'm not sure is on the up and up._"

"_If you know about Iosefka, and you're not doing anything about it, then I'm not sure you're on the up and up._" I told him, aiming my gun. "_And the name's Taylor._"

He paused. "_Well, it is very nice to meet you Taylor._" Teilgean nodded with the greeting, completely disregarding my weapon. "_What was it you were asking about Iosefka?_"

"_You know her?_"

"_I have had dealings with her, yes._"

"_And?_"

"_She's a lovely lady who told me to leave her alone._" Teilgean shrugged. "_She had several patients that she didn't want to risk contaminating._"

"_The Iosefka you talked to was one of the blue creatures I found._" I said pointedly. Teilgean froze, almost comically. "_You already admitted to knowing about them. Tell me what you know._"

Teilgean hummed. "_Well, what you know is pretty similar to what I know at this point. Iosefka is in need of bodies to experiment on, and so asks the hunters that knock on her door for assistance. Those unfortunate enough to be sent her way are… experimented on._"

I narrowed my eyes. "_You knew that and did nothing about it?_"

"_I was hoping this first meeting of ours could go a little more cordially._" Teilgean sighed when I kept my eyes hard. "_Iosefka's place is a fortress. That door is sustained by unholy magics that keep it closed. You can't knock it down, I've tried._"

"_How hard have you tried?_" I questioned.

Teilgean's eyes unfocused and looked at something far away. "_Quite hard._"

That didn't exactly excuse anything, but it was a step towards Teilgean being seen as neutral in my eyes. Right now he was suspicious, a stranger that had popped up out of nowhere, shown a disturbing amount of knowledge, and presumably wanted something. He was also… talking to me.

"_Why are you able to understand me?_" I asked, breaking the awkward quiet and lowering my gun.

Teilgean seemed a little taken aback. "_I'm just talking to you, aren't I?_"

I floundered for a bit. "_Yes, but how? The chapel dweller, as you called them, can't. Next to no one can understand me._"

Teilgean frowned and looked at the chapel dweller. "Have you been following this conversation?"

The chapel dweller gave a shy chuckle. "I've been trying. A lot of the words you two are using are going over my head."

Teilgean glanced at me. "_How strange._" He looked back to the chapel dweller. "The hunter accepted your offer, I think."

"That's wonderful! Hee hee…"

"_I haven't agreed to anything yet._" I said quickly enough that I was talking over the chapel dweller.

"_This unfortunate one has been cursed with altruism._" Teilgean told me morosely. "_He only wants to help people, yet he has an appearance so wretched that most would not approach him. Still, his soul remains kind._"

"_Good for him._" I deadpanned. "_If I took your word for it, I would help him help others. Which I'll hold off on, since I don't trust you._"

"_Then how about this? I point you towards something that you will find immeasurably helpful. You look like you could do with a hand, and all it will take from you is time. If I fail to assist you to a reasonable extent you can continue to disregard my words. But if you admit that I have helped you, then you can trust me insofar as my claim that this place is safe, moon scented hunter._"

I considered his words carefully.

"_If you end up not liking my assistance, I'm sure you'll kill me anyway._" Teilgean shrugged.

The first question I asked ended up being, "_Why did you call me that?_"

"_Call you what?_"

"_Moon scented hunter._"

"_Because you smell like the moon._" Teilgean answered like it was obvious. "_You should dream?_"

"_I dream._" I conceded after some consideration. "_Does it really smell?_"

Teilgean bobbed his head trying to think up a reasonable answer.

"_Actually, I don't want to know._" I decided. It was already a given that I didn't smell good with all the blood and gunpowder. That would just be adding to it. "_Just what exactly is it you're selling me?_"

Teilgean stood on the balcony, displaying a supernatural disregard for the weight on his back. "_I've already told you, you look like you could do with a hand. You've been doing fine without it, but I imagine that situation you're in is just slowing you down._" Teilgean's body flickered, like he was moving in every direction at once for a brief moment, then vanished.

The closed door in the chapel was pushed open a moment later. Teilgean was behind the door, visibly straining as he pushed the heavy thing.

I waited until he caught his breath. "_You're a cape?_" Brute/Mover classifications from the looks of it. A grab bag cape? Teleportation and strength wasn't something I had encountered put together like that before, and I'd encountered a _lot_ of powers over the years.

Teilgean looked up at me, then his gaze drifted to his left shoulder. He flamboyantly gestured at it. "_I do wear a cape, yes._"

I shook my head and waited for him to continue his pitch.

"_Strange question._" Teilgean commented, then shook his head. He gestured down the hallway he just opened up. "_Through here is an elevator. It'll take you to a tower that you should spend some time exploring. Use the dream to make sure you explore it thoroughly. You'll find several somethings that will be of use to you._"

"_Such as?_"

"_Something for the arm._" Teilgean gestured at my stump, nearly making contact since he was so close to me now. "_The moon's presence is stronger there than it is for the rest of you. I presume the dream is trying to project a more complete you? It'll also grant you a significant insight to one of your fellow dreamers._"

"_You mean Gehrman._" I checked.

Teilgean sighed. "_Yes, you could ruin the mystery from the get go. It's not like it was supposed to be a surprise or anything._"

I looked past him down the corridor. It ended after a dozen or so feet and turned off to the right. "_It's interesting you figured out the projection._"

"_I have something of a talent for them._" Teilgean shrugged. "_But yes, if the dream is trying to make something, it'll flail and fail if it doesn't have an anchor. Several things could be an anchor, so that's up to you. That's all I have for you._"

"_Why?_" I asked. Teilgean looked at me, surprised. "_You're going out of your way to help me. Why?_"

Teilgean hummed, considering what to say. "_I wouldn't really call myself a hunter. Not anymore, and I'm aware that I still wear the clothes. I spend my time nowadays… caretaking hunters that need to be taken care of._"

I crossed my arms, but failed because of my stump. In the end, I rested my gun on my other shoulder to communicate how unamused I was.

"_That's caretaking in the loosest sense, just so you know. I'll put it this way. If a hunter needs to reach something and they're travelling an insurmountable path, I'll point out an alternative. If a hunter needs a hand,_" He grinned shamelessly, it reached his eyes. "_I'll point out viable options._"

"_What about taking care of problems?_" I asked, thinking of Gascoigne.

Tielgean's face darkened. "_The hunter of hunters holds that responsibility. Dark work, that._"

"_And who is the hunter of hunters?_"

"_You must have met the Crow by now._" Teilgean said. Something in my face told him he was right. "_Yes, you have. Her work is more dangerous than yours at times. Offer assistance where you can, but never pity her. Empathise, but do not sympathise._"

"_You sound like a therapist._"

A hint of a smile flashed across Teilgean's face, visible even with the vast majority of it covered. "_I'm afraid I'm just a caretaker of sorts. And I possibly haven't been properly honest with you._"

I waited. "_You going to explain?_"

"_Just considering the wording… Your encounter with the Cleric Beast was enthralling. I was impressed, but I couldn't help but note the lack of an arm. I'm interested in how effective you might be with a fourth limb, __**that's**_ _why I'm helping you._"

I gave him another once over with a raised eyebrow. Teilgean, now that he was standing, had a very relaxed air about him. His upper body shifted forwards and back as he spoke and gestured. His posture didn't match a trained warrior or hunter as he claimed to have once been, and it didn't match the big fucking sword on his back either.

He had also watched my fight with the _Cleric Beast_, but hadn't assisted even though I was fighting a pretty fucking insurmountable opponent. Maybe that was the norm for hunters. The ability to try and try again despite death meant that impossible didn't really mean the same thing.

Then he had used the term Cleric Beast to describe the _Cleric Beast…_ Had I been calling it that before? I wasn't about to ask this guy.

"_We'll see if I thank you._" I said at length.

"_I hope you will._" He confessed. Teilgean turned to the chapel dweller. "I'm leaving now."

"Please return shortly." The chapel dweller responded. "If you encounter anyone, please tell them of this place."

"I will." Teilgean waved, and then turned away. "_I'll see you again before the dawn, Taylor._"

I made to say goodbye but he used his power again and disaperated.

With a new direction that I still wasn't sold on, I looked down the hallway Teilgean had opened. If he was to be trusted, then everything was to be gained from exploring like he suggested. If he wasn't, then I'd die, which didn't have any consequences anymore. I mused how useful this ability would have been back in Brockton Bay. Hell, the end of the world.

Since there was nothing but inconvenience to worry about, I decided to humour Teilgean's advice and explore this way first.

The tower that the elevator took me to was filled with Yharnamites. I killed them along with the brute that had somehow joined them all up there. They brought out some new tricks, like flamethrowers, which I promptly disabled by jamming with a hastily gathered swarm. Overall, ascending the tower was pretty easy.

There was an ornate chest up there which held a disproportionately small ornate sword hilt, not unlike the one that came from the _Cleric Beast_. I picked it up and kept going until my exploration was stopped by a door not unlike the one _Teilgean the Near _had opened for me. Inspecting it revealed that it was locked and I didn't have the key. That's when I started exploring down the tower.

Teilgean's advice proved hard to follow, since below a certain point all the floors in the tower just ceased to be. There must have been a hundred feet where the floors had been destroyed, leaving behind a circular drop that was only interrupted by mostly broken landings and circular paths leading around and down the sides.

The part where I 'used my dream' to explore involved aiming for landings that were only accessible from above and jumping. Sometimes from very far above. More than once I died trying to access a landing that was attached to a set of stairs leading away from the tower, which pissed me off. But I kept at it and eventually made it.

Doll's theory about blood echoes being deposited near the point of death proved to mean the spot where I had jumped. They took the form of an endlessly coalescing puddle of that purple mist about half a foot over the ground. The rush I got from the fall was exhilarating, and each impact was painful. There were always a few moments where I watched dark mist welcome me, and in those moments all I could think about was the pain. It was the one thing that prevented me from devaluing my life entirely and acting with complete disregard to my body.

Regardless, I followed the staircase and came to yet another door, this time unlocked. I pushed it open and walked out to the garden of the dream. The hunter's workshop was there at the top of the hill like it always was, but it was even more decrepit.

Significant insight into Gehrman? Yeah, you could say that.


	17. 2 Designate 4

One of the first differences I noticed was in the garden itself. The change noted being a significant lack of graves where they were in the dream. There was one still present that I was going to inspect before leaving. The birdbath was gone as well, with nothing to signify its spot as important.

Further changes in the garden included the portion of the garden where Gherman liked to sleep simply not existing. Doll was nowhere outside. The moon seemed so far away from this place when I looked. That triggered a feeling inside that was difficult to pin down, one like I just realised how far away from home I was.

Melancholia?

I was very far from anywhere I could think of as home.

Anyway, inside the workshop was a state of disrepair even worse than the one in the dream. Even the scythe handle was gone, but there were a few things to take note of. The doll, abandoned in a dark corner of the workshop, for one. That made me pause.

It wasn't just a doll. It _was_ Doll. Completely inanimate, just sitting there with her head resting at an inhuman angle as she sat against the wall.

I stepped through the creaking building slowly, listening out and exploring with my bugs. This seemed to be a dead end, and there was nowhere to go but back, so after a while I relaxed my guard. My bugs coalesced outside and I watched out with them as I crouched in front of the doll.

I lifted the doll's head with my hand and found it wooden to the touch, just like the one in the dream. Nothing happened. I put the doll's head back, correcting the angle to look more natural, then I turned around. There was… something on the alter I hadn't given proper attention to yet.

It was a strip of flesh that was coiled in on itself. It looked old and gey, and had probably been here for some time, yet dust had not gathered on it like it had on the discarded pages that it shared the top of the alter with. All along it were what could have been eyes, but were small, barely the size of the fingernail on my pinky, and were pure black. As the strip of flesh coiled in, the eyes became smaller, but remained comparatively sized to the thickness of the flesh.

But the eyes kept going while the flesh inevitably ended. It hurt to look at. I wanted to destroy it.

Why I wanted to destroy it was difficult to say. Possibly- probably because it reminded me of the form I had seen in Cauldron's base. The form I had seen Scion destroy, at least partially, before fleeing the falling complex. Yet, that didn't seem like enough. Still, I had my gun pointed at the strip of flesh.

I wasn't able to rationalise it, so I didn't. The gun was holstered and I called some bugs to headbutt the strip. The headbutting commenced and then ceased after a few seconds. Nothing changed other than the bugs getting sore heads.

I stepped closer and forced myself to look at the strip of flesh. Was this the 'anchor' Teilgean had told me about? It felt just about weird enough to be that anchor, but I wasn't convinced. A weird, very demented part of me entertained the idea of eating the strip of flesh. I shot that part of me and locked them in master/stranger confinement seeing as the coffin I normally used was at the bottom of a cliff.

Whatever this thing was, it reeked of powers. Wet tinker bullshit, specifically. I was put in the mind of Iosefka, but brushed that off. Iosefka was a now problem, one that had only recently come into power. This had been left here for a long time, going by the dust. The only people with access to this place were ones with a deathwish.

Iosefka would have made it blue, probably. That seemed to be her thing. The slug and the two creatures- Iosefka and what I assumed was the old woman- were both blue. Possibly an aesthetic quirk of her power, but not grounds to rule her out.

What were the alternatives then? Another adversary I hadn't encountered yet? I ran through the names I had heard but not met. Paleblood was the first to leap to mind. The only capacity in which I knew him or her was through the massage I woke up with. '_Seek Paleblood to transcend the hunt._'

The concept of transcending coupled with the strip of flesh's abstract nature could be perceived as a connection, but that again felt weak.

Gherman then. That connection felt stronger, seeing as he was the sole resident of a dream that had recreated this place with frightening accuracy. Doll was a doll, while Gherman had confessed to living in Yharnam. If anyone knew what this thing was, it was him. After all, who knew what he was hiding, sitting in the wheelchair of his and dozing off half the time.

I drew a blank when it came to thinking up anyone else that might be related. Except for Cauldron of course, but Cauldron was dead. Come to think of it, it was possible that they had some involvement, but I hadn't seen any evidence of their work so far. That, of course, didn't rule them out, but I had a gut feeling that this wasn't them. When I had the sight of the Clairvoyant, this place, Earth Yharm, hadn't registered.

Which was really fucking strange, now that I thought about it. But it wasn't like I had the Clairvoyant around to double check.

That delivered me to my next conundrum. What to do with the strip of flesh? Leaving it here was an option, but one that I didn't feel was smart. So long as it was possibly the anchor, it would have use to me. So then do I pick it up? If so, how do I carry it? It was _dripping_ something, and it sure as hell didn't look like water.

On that note, I separated the bugs that had headbutted it from the bugs that had not. There was nothing noticeably different about any of them so far.

"_Sorry, Doll._" I took off her hat and placed it up side down. Then I piled several sheets of paper in there, then I placed the glove I wasn't using on the strip of flesh and gripped it through that. The strip went into the hat, and I pulled the strings tight with some difficulty. If I got in a fight, I'd probably lose it, but I was planning on reawakening to get out of here.

When I turned around, there was a lantern in the middle of the workshop. It wasn't lit, but it certainly hadn't been there before. That struck me as strange.

The lanterns appeared in places of sanctuary or achievement. The sanctuaries so far tentatively included that sickroom on the first floor of Iosefka's, the ledge by Gilbert's, and the chapel I met Teilgean in. The achievements were the prey I slaughtered. The _Cleric Beast_, and my not-brother, and now this place.

What had I achieved? Did the Hunter's Dream view me collecting this strip of flesh as something worth rewarding? The questions for Gehrman were mounting.

I lit the lantern with a touch, and watched that pale light ripple across its many surfaces, then the little ones rising to maintain and worship it, but I didn't travel through. There was still a grave to visit.

It was a strange placement for a headstone, the stone had been placed so that there was little room between it and the path leading to the workshop. The headstone itself was very close to the workshop as well, what that meant beyond someone viewing it as important, I couldn't say. There wasn't enough space to bury a body there, unless the body was buried upright, which I doubted would happen, or they were buried in the fetal position. Or maybe it was for a child, it was hard to say.

It was also possible there was no body and that the marker was for remembrance.

I believed the headstone was placed in remembrance. The body of the deceased must have been important to the one who used this place. Gehrman, obviously. But that's kind of why what I found there was so strange.

In that small patch of dirt between the headstone and the path was a bone just barely visible, half buried in dirt. The bone had been broken in two. It was easy to tell because the snapped end was the one I could see. I crouched in front of the grave and read the name on the inscription. One word.

_Maria_

So there was a body.

I brushed some of the dirt off of the bone and braced for something to happen when I touched it. Nothing happened as far as I could tell. No vertigo or headache came rushing on, just dirt being moved and some of it sticking to my glove.

That's where I stopped. Sure, I could kill people, sacrifice them to save humanity, destroy anyone trying to harm someone I cared about, and so on and so forth. But there was nothing motivating me or necessitating me robbing this grave.

The only reason I was here was for an anchor, which felt contrived in the first place. I was here because someone told me I'd get an arm here, and it wouldn't take much away from me. I was supposed to be finding little Taylor somewhere to be safe, why was I robbing a grave? The only reason this bone could be used as an anchor…

A bone would probably make a better anchor than an abstract piece of meat. I pulled it up and stowed the piece of bone away. It was shorter than I expected it to be.

Before I made it back to the lamp, one of my bugs climbed over a comb. I glanced back at Doll, and saw her hair was ruffled from how I'd taken the hat. Feeling a little guilty, I took the comb and brushed the hair straight again. It wasn't something I'd have done if I hadn't held a conversation with a living duplicate of the doll.

Feeling weird, but strangely satisfied with my work, which hadn't returned the doll's hair to how it was when I found her by any means but now it was at least neat, I placed the comb in the doll's hand and left for the dream.

~drip~drip~drip~

****t s**** **th *h** ***

"_Gehrman, wake up._" I shook the old man's shoulders. He roused slowly. I took the time to move in front of him and cross my arm.

"Ah. Aah… hunter." He took a moment to make sure he wasn't drooling any. "What brings you to me this time?"

I unceremoniously dropped the hat with the strip of flesh into his lap. "_I've been exploring out there. Found a tower, did some vertical inspection, found something strange._" I gestured at the workshop. "_Inside was something even stranger._"

Gehrman held onto his cane with one hand while opening the package with the other. The liquid hadn't run through, thankfully. Though I was beginning to suspect the liquid was benign. He sighed when he unveiled the strip within.

"Why, I never thought I'd-" He caught himself and looked up to me with a dangerous glint in his eye. "Do you know what this is?"

"_If I did, would I be asking you?_" I saw his reaction, the wince. "_I take that back, I'd still be asking you. Probably less nicely. What is that?_"

Gehrman ignored all the safety precautions I had made moving the strip of flesh and picked it up with his bare hands. He cupped the strip and held it closer to him. "Tell me, hunter. What do you know of the Great Ones?"

Big fucking alarm bells went off in my head. "_That they're important and a crazy woman idolizes them. But you know more than that, don't you?_"

Gehrman nodded and let his hands fall into his lap, still cradling the strip of flesh. "This is an umbilical cord. Well… part of one. Taken from a stillborn birth."

"_You were talking about things called 'Great Ones', and now you're talking about dead babies?_"

I was testing Gehrman's patience, but beyond a controlled snort he maintained appearances. "Young hunter… You have stumbled upon something irrelevant to your hunt. Were I you, I would acknowledge this third of umbilical cord holds nothing of benefit to me and continue with what was left of my life."

"_Gehrman,_" I ignored how he flinched when I said his name. "_I don't care about any 'benefits' that strip of flesh can give me. The reason I woke you up and asked you about it was because I found this workshop in the real world. On that alter in the workshop? That's where I found this. What I want is for you to explain yourself._"

Gehrman breathed out heavily. "I made a mistake, young hunter."

"_Taylor._" I corrected snappily. "_I'm using your name, the least you could do is use mine._"

Gehrman didn't look happy about that. "Well... _Taylor_, I would advise you that some things are beyond your concern."

"_That doesn't change the fact that I'm concerned._" I thought briefly, then lazily swept my leg, hitting Gehrman's peg leg and making it bend uncomfortably before returning my foot to the ground. "_I'm also the one with both legs. I'm the one doing this 'hunt' you're supposed to be advising me on, except you spend all your time snoring. Doll is doing a better job than you. But I suppose she has to, since she's the one with the power that benefits the hunter. All you are is belligerent, and aloof. _

"_Do you remember what I said when I first came here? That me being alive wasn't supposed to be in the cards? That means I have less reason to play by the rules you set up. For all I know, I could find out something that will make me flip out and kill you tomorrow. I've seen it happen once already, and I don't think I've even been here longer than a few days. Answer my question, or I'll treat you like all the enemies I put in the dirt __**before**_ _I lost the ability to die._"

Gehrman was quiet for a good long while before he sighed. "_Taylor_, please believe me when I say that I have your best interests at heart."

"_If you want me to believe that, then give me a reason to._"

He said nothing.

The silence said a lot.

I let the silence reign and walked away. He had a haunted look about him, and with the implications he'd brought up I was content to let him haunt himself for a while.

Doll was kneeling by the grave that existed in the real world. She stood as I approached. While I had passed her when I was traveling to Gehrman, I hadn't looked at her face, but now that I was in front of her...

"_Doll, you're crying._"

She daintily touched her cheek with a fingertip. The wooden hand came away with a sparkling teardrop. Doll took a step sideways, not to move, but to balance.

"I do not know what is happening to me." She confessed.

I stepped closer, ready to catch her if I needed to. "_What's wrong? Were you listening to Gehrman and I?_"

"No, I was-" She seemed to miss the sentence she was trying to complete. "I felt a yearning. Something I have never felt before. It started here," She placed a hand over her abdomen, then moved it to over her breast where the other one met with it in a gesture almost like praying. "And then it rose. It was… happiness, possibly?" Doll looked at me quizzically. "Do you know what happiness feels like?"

"_Uh._" My brain missed a stair as I desperately tried to sort through my memories. Other people kept getting in the way.

"_Taylor._" Doll brought me out of my fruitless scavenge through my own memories. "For some reason I cannot recall, I feel... confident. I would like to try and see if I could channel your echoes into something more sturdy that what we have seen previously."

I was still trying to get over the fact that I couldn't bring up any happy memories. Did the english lessons with Taylor count? No, that was overshadowed by my guilt of killing her father. So then what? "_You're talking about my arm?_" She nodded. I wasn't sure why everyone was so fixated on my arm now, but I couldn't deny that I'd be more effective with one. "_Sure._"

Doll knelt and I let her activate her power. Thanks to me trying to get over the fact that I wasn't coming up with any happy memories, I got caught by Doll's orb and she had to remind me to shut my eyes. When she asked me where I wanted my echoes to go, I told her to put them into making my body more sturdy again. Offensively, I was doing just fine.

Memories of the ones I killed, and memories of how I killed them rushed past. It was incredibly strange, experiencing both ends of a murder, but I pushed past that. Once the echoes had passed, I opened my eyes and saw the pale appendage once more, barely more than an outline.

Teilgean had mentioned a need of an anchor. If I just had one on me, then it wasn't good enough. The umbilical cord was with Gehrman, and I didn't think the arm would survive the walk over to take it back. The comb. I had brushed Doll's hair with it, and then she had started crying. It had a connection to the dream, why did I leave it there?

No point in kicking myself, my time was running out. Already this arm had been around for as long as the first one. Doll was staring at it, still kneeling as if the act of her standing up would break it. Her hope for this to succeed wasn't an intense one, rather it was soft. Willing to guide the echoes along the way, but not to force them.

A saying about horses and water came to mind, but I banished that. Not helpful.

I had Maria's bone on me, still, probably. It occurred to me the grave may have been marked wrong. Pointless thought to have now. The echo of my arm had an outline. Skin, almost. It didn't have anything but fake stars inside it, maybe it needed a bone? It probably didn't matter who the bone came from if it did.

Getting the bone out meant I had to shift myself, and the arm threatened to break because of it. Once it was out I had my fake right arm held in an awkward position and my left arm holding a broken bone, not quite sure what to do with it. I didn't know how much longer the arm would stay, so I pushed the bone into the arm and expected it to break the fragile projection.

When only the top layer of the arm broke I was pleasantly surprised. While pale lines fractured and spun out, the mist from within coalesced around the bone, then tugged it from my grasp with a surprising strength. It floated the bone to the centre of the projection, then shifted so the complete end of the bone was by the wrist. The frayed lines slowly reformed and pulled themselves back together.

The fog within billowed in and within itself, and seemed to multiply within the confines of the arm. It became dense enough that it stopped looking like smoke, and the colour shifted slightly until it almost matched the colour of my skin. It didn't look quite right. There was still a pale shimmer, and the light caught in strange places as it moved.

Doll watched in rapture as I rotated my wrist and flexed my fingers. I was getting feedback, possibly more than I had been getting before. Eventually I extended my hand forwards like I was offering a handshake. Doll seemed confused until it clicked for her that I was offering a handshake.

"Good hunter…" She uttered as she grasped my hand. I felt all the wooden joints in her fingers and palm. The sensation almost let me imagine the shape in my mind.

"_Thank you, Doll._" I said, genuine, but distracted. I had just noticed how her hair was falling asymmetrically around her face. Once side had been brushed much less tidily than the other.

And with that, my arm shattered. This time there was enough there for pain to register and a pained sound left my mouth. It was worse than losing the original, which had taken a while to register. No shock for this arm, but the pain became phantom after a split second, as there was no longer anything to feel.

The bone hit the floor.

Doll let out a disappointed sigh. "I felt… as though I could sustain it for you. I'm sorry I could not. What was it that you used?"

"_Maria's bone._" I told her as I picked it up. "_It's a shame. I'd have liked a hand._"

Doll tilted her head quizzically.

"_Nevermind._"


	18. 2 Designate 5

"You're back." Little Taylor said.

I didn't say anything, but I nodded. There was a strip of paper in my new hand that I handed to the cuter, littler version of me. Taylor just worked through the sentence with a little more ease than she'd done before.

_I have found somewhere safe for you._ New line. _Have you seen your sister?_

While Teilgean's advice hadn't lead me to a new arm, it had maybe helped me take a step in that direction. It wasn't ideal, but it spoke of his honesty, if only to an extent. How that spoke of the rest of his character remained to be seen, but I had been convinced the chapel would be safer than this place.

Her sister was something I was still worried about.

"I haven't." Her voice quivered. "She didn't say anything to me. I think she just left to find mom, but she forgot the music box too. I don't understand."

I didn't either, so I held her close, rummaged up some food and the like, then we started moving towards the chapel.

The walk over went better than the walk to Iosefka's clinic. Even the big flaming ball that had been pushed down the aqueduct bridge had come back when I died, but I had already dealt with that. This time I had approached from the side of the graveyard and it had been me that lit that thing up. I wouldn't have called it satisfying, but I did feel some catharsis from watching the flaming ball fall down to the sewer knowing it wouldn't be a problem until the next time I visited the dream.

Now I was herding little Taylor across the bridge, I took a moment to ponder on why my arm hadn't stayed. I came up with nothing, and soon we were at the chapel. My transformed bugs were left behind as the incense became too strong, and I homed in on the chapel dweller.

"Hello… heh." He couldn't help himself from laughing nervously. "I wasn't totally sure you heard me the last time you were here."

I held a strip of paper in front of him. He reached up with thin and bony hands and took it with fingers a touch longer than I would've thought natural, and fingernails that _really_ needed some trimming.

"Ah, ha. I'm afraid I never took the time to learn." He chuckled breathily. "Can you speak english?"

"_I can._" I said, but he didn't understand.

"I can." Little Taylor volunteered. I took the paper and handed it to little Taylor. She stumbled through the letters. "See. Ay. En. Um… San?"

"_Can._" I said, hoping it would get through. The little girl repeated it the word after me, so it did.

"Tee. Eighch. Eye. Ess. Ah! This!" I nodded approvingly of her getting it. "Um… See?"

"_G._"

"Gee." She nodded. "Eye again. Arr. Eye?"

"L."

"Girl." Taylor affirmed, sounding out the word slowly until the word clicked. She pointed at the fourth word and looked at me. "I know this one. Stay."

A smile touched my lips and I ruffled her hair, then remembered that Gascoigne tugged her ear to show his pride, so I did that too. Taylor smiled for the first time. I found myself staring at her embarrassed but proud expression.

"Of course she can." The dweller added with conviction before Taylor could get started on the fifth word, also bringing me out of my thoughts.

I nodded and took the paper back.

"There's more though." Taylor protested. I let myself smile and ruffled her hair again. The last word was 'here' and it had a question mark. Then I handed her another strip of paper.

It took a while since the only way I could ask questions was through a girl that was still expanding her vocabulary, but the exchange went smoothly enough.

_How much incense do you have?_

"Enough to last until the dawn." The dweller answered. Then he laughed nervously. "And then the next dawn, should the hunt persist."

I arched an eyebrow, but moved on to more pressing questions.

_Food and water?_

"Some, but not much."

I made a note to myself to do some scavenging.

_Keep her safe._

"It's safe in here." The dweller assured me, but that laugh he followed up with undid any assuaging he managed.

Then I gave Taylor another strip that she instantly recognised most of the words on.

_Stay here. _New line. _Stay strong._

Taylor nodded absently and I stood to go, but I had to stop when she gave me one of those 'don't go' hugs. She needed it, so I didn't break it except to crouch back down and give her a goodbye one in return. Or half of one. Still only had one hand.

But eventually I had to break it and go. I realised that she had started to shed silent tears during the embrace and wiped them away for her. Then I tugged her ear and left through the lamp.

I had unfinished business to deal with.

~drip~drip~drip~

*****h*** ** *ea* *** *i****i**

He was leaned against the wall when I appeared. Teilgean watched me as I stumbled to find my footing on the uneven floor. I felt his eyes scan my body, lingering where my still missing arm would be, before flicking up to meet my eyes.

I waited, my hand next to the handle of my axe, but not holding it.

Teilgean was the one who gave out. "_You'll find no closure here._"

"_No disarming comments this time?_" I shot back.

He snorted through his scarf. "_I'm sure I can think up one or two if that's something you desire. As for what's at the top of those stairs-_" He gestured to the now closed doors into Iosefka's clinic proper. "_She's in a frenzy now. You'll have a harder time killing her now that she understands you._"

I raised an eyebrow. I hadn't realised that was a method to getting myself understood.

Teilgean's demeanour shifted darkly. "_Don't misunderstand, she knows your habits and tactics now. Your echoes flow through her. It will have made her more maddened than before._"

"_I've fought worse._" I said.

"_She's already killed you. She can do it again. The only thing you'll find with this pursuit is frustration._"

"_Are you going to keep warning me away from this, or are you going to say something that will help, because in case you didn't realise,_" I raised my stump in front of me. "_Your advice didn't get me my arm back._"

He tilted his head a fraction, almost like how Doll had. "_You don't sound particularly disappointed._"

I shrugged. "_I saved the world and died without an arm. I'm used to it._"

He gave me a long, hard look. I had seen that kind of look, it was how Chevalier had looked at me so long ago. The hero, like the enigmatic character before me, had enough obscuring himself that it had been difficult to guess at what his expression might have been like. But there was a certain air people adopted when they were evaluating something or someone important.

In the past, it had been because I'd just killed one of the world's most well known superheroes. Now, I wasn't sure what I was being evaluated for. I wasn't sure I liked it, going by the evident conflict going on in Teilgean's head.

"_How?_" He eventually asked.

"_Left eye._" I said. He blinked, then flinched back as a fly flew into his left eye. My swarm wasn't as thick as I was used to, having just appeared, but there was enough that I could make it clear they were moving to me. The bugs that were climbing up my clothes were climbing on the outside rather than the inside right now.

"_You control them?_" Teilgean asked, still holding a reserved tone.

I made the bugs between us form into the letters for 'YES' rather than answering verbally. That made him become even more thoughtful.

"_Powers are the standard here._" I told him when I felt he was being too indulgent in his thoughtfulness. "_Everyone's a brute to some extent, and I think it's because a wet tinker has distributed something through the blood. It's not Iosefka, her tinkering presents itself differently. You're a mover and brute. I'm a master and now a brute, in more ways than one. The dream is a trump._" I didn't know what Teilgean's impression of Doll was, so I chose not to mention her by name.

Teilgean still didn't speak, prefering to take that in in his own time. But my little spout of information caught his attention. "_Those are interesting words you've put to what you've observed._"

"_They are standard PRT classifications._" I explained. "_You might have noticed that I'm not from here._"

"_That much was a given. You don't fit in here._"

"_You've underestimated just how far away I was snatched from._"

"_Oh?_"

I sighed. Time to give the spiel again. "_I saved the worlds. My reward was to be getting shot twice in the back of the head, and I suspect I was to be delivered to another world where I could have lived a normal life. Instead, black smoke snatched me away and I came here._" I gestured broadly around myself. "_I started dreaming and I can't wake up._"

"_That doesn't explain why you were brought here, to the beginning, when you should be at the end._" He spoke cryptically. Softly. More to himself than to me.

"_Are you going to keep speaking like a crazy person, or are you going to explain what it is you know that I don't?_" I demanded.

"_All in good time._" Teilgean told me, like a crazy person.

I snorted and swept up the stairs to the door. Frankly, I was done with crazy people talking around issues with their crazy talk. There were a few things that mattered to me right now. Little Taylor's wellbeing was one of them. That Iosefka answered for what she had done and tried to do was another.

As it had been before, the door was closed. The handle on my side didn't turn when I gripped it, and when I kicked the door it didn't budge. Not even a little. Reaching through the broken glass proved fruitless when my hand impacted an invisible wall. I braced myself and threw myself against it even harder to less effect. I got in a good position to kick rather than just hitting it, and my boot impacted the wooden barrier where the tooth was.

Nothing.

I got out my axe and swung at it with all of my enhanced strength.

It bounced off the fucking _glass._ The way Teilgean had said that he'd tried 'quite hard' to break down this door came to mind. This thing was reinforced by powers. It was bullshit that Iosefka was a wet tinker and could use her power on _doors_.

The shroud seemed to be back up as well. I couldn't sense any bugs beyond the door, and I'd peered through until I noticed a small black speck moving across the room. There were definitely bugs in there, but this was quickly turning out to be a fruitless endeavor.

At the very least, Teilgean wasn't smug when I came back down.

"_No closure, huh?_"

"_Not for a while yet._" He said, sounding like he agreed with me. But then again, it sounded like he was drawing that conclusion from something he knew that I didn't.

"_I'm getting real tired of this._" I told him in a low growl.

"_Everyone does._" He admitted. "_But I suppose it's time I did something more towards fulfilling my role._" He pushed off from the wall. "_Your arm, I assume you've tried with whatever you found in the workshop?_"

"_I have questions about how you knew that and why you told me._" I said.

"_So you did inspect the workshop. Good. How did the projection fare? Don't tell me there wasn't an improvement._"

"_Before I say that, what do you know of the Great Ones?_" I asked, paying attention to his reaction. He recognised the title, but he kept his reaction in check. Nothing more than a reflexive squinting of the eyes when I dropped the title. A muted reaction, but one that recognised significance in what I said. "_You clearly know something._"

He spent long enough deliberating that I preemptively decided to deny whatever he said. "_Sideways beings, them. Your arm._"

"_No._" I said flatly. "_Do better._"

Teilgean gave me a long look before allowing himself the smallest of sighs. "_Learning of the Great Ones is a paradoxical pursuit. What holds true at this moment may not hold true the next- to some extent. They are, in a way, what this city is built on. Which is the exception to the rule I just laid out._"

I raised an eyebrow. That had several implications.

"_They left, long ago._" Teilgean continued. "_This material place held nothing of interest to them, or maybe they were simply bored, or maybe they couldn't stand to be around us lowly mortals with our flesh and our drama, or perhaps they did it to protect us from themselves. As to how they left…_" Teilgean spread his arms wide in a shrug, then made a show of shrugging. "_It was long before my time. Word has it that those they gifted with the knowledge of where they went, uh, went mad._"

"_How long ago?_" I asked.

"_We can't be certain, but three hundred years or more sounds about right._"

Now it was my turn to become thoughtful. There had been an assumption building in the back of my mind that the Great Ones were related to the powers here, but the timeline didn't pan out. Powers only started appearing roughly thirty years ago when Scion showed up on Bet. Still, there was a fact to check.

"_How long has the blood been around?_" I asked suddenly.

"_I suppose one day you'll be interested in something that actually helps you._" Teilgean muttered. "_It's, ah… a few years past the twenty fifth anniversary of the founding of the Healing Church._"

Which didn't help.

"_I can see this is troubling you hunter._" Teilgean spoke, his voice shifting to a different tone. Much like I expected he wanted to change the topic of conversation.

"_I had a suspicion._" I admitted. "_How long have powers been a thing?_" My question was met with a blank stare and I waved it off. "_It's clearly something you don't know the answer to._"

"_Hm._" He hummed in agreement. "_But on the other hand…_" I sighed. I should've expected that. "_I think I understand why it's a little difficult for you to juggle at the moment._"

I arched an eyebrow and waited for him to get on with it.

"_Projecting an arm and maintaining that arm strikes me as more than mundane._" Teilgean said, and I immediately got what he was getting at. "_Your trick with the bugs seems along that alley, and it's not something I've had the pleasure of observing before. I thought the reason there was a writhing mass on the Cleric Beast was a simple pungent blood cocktail. That being said, it isn't enough for you to visualise the right shape and get by on what you have. You need to brush up on your arcane._"

Meaning it was time to get back to robbing people's experiences from them through their souls. I grimaced. Although…

I looked up the stairs to Iosefka's clinic. "_She would be perfect._" Wet tinker that had the ability to shroud herself and her house from my bugs. Powers were more than mundane. Yeah, she fit the bill.

Teilgean got an anxious look about him. "_All you would be doing is constructing a more difficult obstacle down the road. You'll come back to her. I'm absolutely sure of that._"

I glanced back at him. "_You said your role was to point out the next best thing. Tell me. What's the next best thing?_" It wasn't like I had a way inside anyway.

"_Well, given your predisposition I can't imagine you're going to be happy with my answer, but the answer is to hunt._"

He was right. I bristled.

Teilgean spoke. "_There is a beast through which arcane flows strong. All you need do is travel to Cathedral Ward and you'll eventually come upon them. Put her down, use the dream, and that will let you more easily overcome the next obstacle to arise._"

"_And then?_" I asked testily.

"_You will more easily be able to overcome the obstacle that arises after that one, assuming you use the dream as it was intended to be used._" He said. "_And then the next obstacle after that, and so on until eventually you come back here._"

"_And in the meantime what does she do?_" I gestured up the staircase. "_She has my echoes now. Not many, but some, and most importantly, mine. Whatever crazy things she was getting up to before, she's going to be doing stuff that's worse now. Do I just accept that?_"

"_Considering that she's locked you out,_" Teilgean spoke sagely, "_You don't have much of a choice._"

"_I don't like that._" I deadpanned, but I didn't deny it. Now that I was aware of the shrouded area, I was able to feel around it with my bugs. From what my creepy crawlies had explored, there wasn't any way inside for someone my size.

Teilgean offered no defence. Eventually I sighed.

"_To Cathedral Ward._"

"_I'll leave you to it, then._" Teilgean barely finished the sentence before using his power to disappear. It left a bad taste in my mouth. Movers were always like that. The fact that I'd been dealing with them in one form or another for years did nothing to quench the annoyed feeling that swept through me.

And so I went to Cathedral Ward. Not five minutes into that part of the town I got hit over the head with an unreasonable amount of force and stuffed into a body bag.


	19. 2 Designate 6

I sat bolt upright, in pain and reaching out with my swarm.

Things were very wrong, that was the first thought to cross my mind. For one, I couldn't see the sky. When I died, I normally dissipated in black smoke, was forced to endure the pain, and then awoke by the workshop. The place I had awoken was a prison.

The only way that made sense was if I hadn't actually died. As I moved again, my pains made themselves known. For some reason, whoever dragged me here hadn't confiscated any of my equipment. I still had my axe and my blood vials, and I quickly used one to touch up my wounds.

It ran out of juice before all the aches went away, so I used another and pushed myself to my feet, a giggle escaping my mouth. Reminding me that that was still a problem. I started mapping out the room I was in using my bugs as I buried the thought with other information. The room was filled with creepy statues, the tiles really needed some maintenance, and there was no one in my range.

I put my hand to my head in an attempt to massage away the ache that the blood had failed to shift. The last things I remembered were fighting a crowd of Yharnamites after… dropping down the rest of the tower I found the hunter's workshop in. There had been a… unique beast down there, but nothing I couldn't overcome.

That one had been alone. Not with a crowd. It hadn't been the one to bring me here. Something had... happened when I killed it, but when I tried to remember what it was, the memory came with pain that blotted out my minds eye. I moved past it. That wasn't the last of my memory.

I had definitely been fighting. Of that much I was certain. There had been… a tall Yharnamite. I hadn't seen him up close, not with my eyes, anyway. The fight had been going much the way of the ones from before. I was incapacitating the men long before stepping close. Biding my time so they fell to my bugs and then fell the rest of the way to me. Then…

I remembered a lot of bugs disappearing at once. It had… distracted me. It let a pitchfork graze at my side. I… retaliated. Then nothing. There were flashes of my bugs crawling all over strange people in unfamiliar locations. Then… here.

The overwhelming question in my head was why?

I went over to the door and tested it, fully prepared to use my enhanced strength to wrench the bars, but it was unlocked. It slid open with a screech at barely a touch, leaving me standing in the open doorway with my arm outstretched.

Why?

Why bring me to near death and bring me here? Why save me from those other Yharnamites who would absolutely have jumped at the chance to kill me? Why go to all that effort just to leave me alone in an unlocked cell?

I tentatively stepped out, waiting for a shoe to drop but it never came. I was free to do as I pleased. With a strange feeling in my gut, I started to explore. Upstairs were more flights of stairs leading up and down. I almost went up, since I could sense earthworms around me and used that to figure I was underground still.

Crying coming from below made me pause. After a brief mental debate on whether crying was something that could be trusted in this place, I made for the room below. Many more creepy statues were here, as well as many creepy crawlies that I added to my swarm, and there was crying coming from a woman huddled in a corner.

First, I became really fucking cautious. Mentally stable people in Yharnam were less of a dime in a dozen and closer to being a needle in a haystack. That being said, I'd prefer not to push someone over the edge with sudden bugs, so I had them hide behind the myriad sculpted marble columns.

"_Hello?_" I tried.

There was no response, which was to be expected.

Regardless of my previous decision, I had my strongest bugs gather beneath me and dropped my axe into their waiting mandibles. They followed me closely, and maneuvered the axe so the handle was never far from my hand. Then I shook the woman's shoulders.

She was dressed similarly to how Gascoigne had been, kind of, they had the same cape, and had dark hair that curled just enough to be called wavy. Her skin was pale and clammy, and while that was difficult to make out in the current lighting, the whites of her eyes gave away a wild gaze as she reacted to my touch. One eye stared at me for a full second, then she pulled away from my hand and returned to rocking.

"The blood guides us," She was whispering to herself in fervent prayer, "Sees us through to the morning, always. The beasts come, ye of little faith. You who are the beast. The blood protects the faithful."

There was more, but I dismissed it for the misguided prayer that it was. I didn't really see how a god like what had been popular before Scion could fit into what I knew of reality, but that didn't matter here. She was praying to the blood. There would be no answers for her.

"_I'm Taylor._" I tried again.

If there was ever a way to scream as a whisper, I heard it here. It was as if my words brought this woman physical pain.

"_Are you okay?_" I said. No response. "_Help?_" I tried simply. Shorter phrases got through more often. This phrase did get through, but not in the way I expected. Blood spattered in front of the woman. She looked at me with a more wild expression than before.

"The blood protects the body. The blood protects the mind." Her mouth kept going, but her eyes were locked on me. "Yet the beastly plague remains. Insanity is its vision." She stood, but stayed hunched, and I _really _wasn't comfortable with how she was standing.

"_Stop._" I said.

Whoever this woman was, she could hear me and understand me. She stopped moving, and I let myself relax somewhat. It was short lived, because her eyes started crying blood moments later. She let out a horrible moan that spoke of mental torture she could not escape.

She was too pale. I extracted one of my blood vials from my belt and offered it. "_Help?_" I repeated. Though I said that and offered the vial, the handle of my axe was not far away. This whole situation was fucked. This person had gone rock still, and I couldn't help but think it was my words that did it to her. She started bleeding from her left ear at that point.

Why? Teilgean and I could hold conversation just fine and no one exploded. Not even the chapel dweller after listening to a ten minute discussion. Taylor and I held long conversations and she'd never started reacting like this.

"Our thirst for blood satiates us, soothes our fears. Seek the old blood, but beware the frailty of men." The woman's words were even more breathy than before. "Frailty brings loss, and loss brings tears. But baptised in blood do we live again." She did _not _look sane.

The only thing I could figure as different here was this woman. Something in her was reacting to me. I should back off. I handed her the blood vial, but I backed off. She watched me go, and I watched her long after I was behind a barrier. The whites of her eyes stood out unnaturally against the darkness. Was that an effect of madness? Or was she just special in some way?

In any case, I made sure not to say another word as I ascended. The events from before weighing heavy on my mind. Those parting words in particular. Soon I reached the surface, and had to put all that behind me. It pained me, but I had a sneaking suspicion that this was a case of helping more by not helping at all.

The room I found myself arriving in was reminiscent of a cathedral, but it was in a similar state of disrepair to the room I woke up in, if not worse. It was clear I was in new territory, and I had new foes to deal with. There were two men just like the one that knocked me out wandering up and down the large and empty room.

I recognised them through my bugs more than my eyes. I'd never really looked at the guy who had jumped me, but I was familiar with how my bugs perceived him. He was taller than the Yharnamites I'd become used to killing, and he failed to care when the extensions of my will started biting. That alone set off alarm bells, and I directed more of my swarm to deal with him while maintaining distance myself. That let me get a better look.

He had a hood draped over his face to the point that it would have obscured his vision, and his shirt had a v-cut so deep I couldn't help but wonder if he was trying to show off. I used that deep v to better access his admittedly leathery skin with my bugs and get them biting all across his body. Through all of that, he seemed rather unconcerned. I eyed the bag he was carrying over his shoulder warily. The bag was big enough to fit a body.

The flashes I remembered of being dragged through mysterious places suddenly made more sense. I doubted they would ever make complete sense. Thought, I noted that the two I was currently backing away from were almost completely identical.

It was similar to how there were so many Brutes with similar Case 53 characteristics in Yharnam. I was beginning to think that these people had been tinkered on in an attempt to make a better soldier. Looking at the bags now, my memories of being kidnapped sprung to mind.

Body snatchers. There were too many Brutes for all of them to have all volunteered.

But who made them? I had the suspicion that it was the Healing Church, which made the name ironic. Still, I was ready to be proven wrong if another likely party showed up. The only other candidate was tentatively Byrgenwerth, but if my visions were to be believed that place was closed off and had been for years.

There was a landing on the side I had entered the room on that my bugs were telling me was home to another lantern. I made a mental note to light it after facing the bag men.

It ended up not being too dissimilar to the fight I had with the two beasts on the bridge. One was much closer than the other and I did my best to keep the same one between me and the other at all times. Unlike the fight on the bridge, however, I hadn't had the time to gather a proper swarm yet.

Still, I put half of my bugs on him and had them gnaw away at vital areas. As my bugs did that, I repeatedly backed away and made sure he and his friend weren't about to jump me. Before my bugs could break something vital he got tired of my antics and extended his palm flat towards me. There was a shimmer of pale blue in the air as me and the bodies of my bugs were suddenly pulled towards him.

It was a violent pull, but it did superficial damage to me. The problem with that was that the damage I considered superficial was enough to kill even my hardiest cockroaches that got caught in it. That was about a third of my swarm in all. With that, he swung his bag around and I jumped back, dodging the blow that came down and flung splinters everywhere.

That would have killed me if it hit. Or it would've put me so close to death I wouldn't have been able to react to whatever he did next. As it stood, the bag man put his bag back over his shoulder and started advancing on me again. Then he paused and tensed. Then a mist of blood billowed out of his skin and he kept coming.

I had no idea what he had just done, but I had no intention to find out. Fortunately, at about that time my good biting bugs managed to rupture his eyeballs and he was blinded. The bag man didn't howl, but he did jump at where he thought I was, which was off to my right. His fist came down with even more force than the bag had, and left a hole in the ground that went through the wooden floorboards and into the stone below.

Yeah. I didn't want to get caught by that.

As he raised his hand in that gesture that had preceded the pull that caught me off guard the first time, I retreated with my bugs and advanced as myself. Before he could finish the act my axe was buried in his back.

It wasn't much of a fight after that. I killed the second bag man much the same way and lit the lamp. In my mind I pegged the bag men, who all seemed to have the same powerset, as brute/brute/shakers. The exact numbers eluded me, but I had a decent enough gauge on their abilities to know how to react now. The two brute ratings came from how its case 53 nature gave it that pale, leathery skin that was effectively more sturdy than leather, as well as that blood mist thing it did that enhanced its strength and allowed it to make a small crater in the stone below the wood.

The shaker rating was obvious. The fact that it could use the same power in two different ways did not warrant a separate rating. That did nothing to quench the fact that the bag men had a way to clear my swarm en mass, and I wasn't happy with that. Still, I was turning these thoughts over in my head as I moved. There was a lot to figure out, and I wasn't going to figure that out in here. I did note the creepy statue of a many armed creature above the lamp, but since no one was around to explain it I kept moving.

There was a crazy old woman who screamed something about eyes while I was on my way out, but I stopped her before she could get close to me. She was killed when I determined she was both inconsolable and aggressive.

After that I left the building and was subsequently run over by an oversized pig.

~drip~drip~drip~

r**ur**ct **

There had been a little one of the dream in the middle of the street worshipping something. When I found that he didn't have anything to give me, I looked in the direction he was, and that was the moment I died. When I awoke in the dream, I was cursing my lack of range. That would never have happened back on earth Bet. Then Doll wished me fortune in the waking world and I was back at it.

The two bag men were dispatched better than I had the first time, and that damn pig with my echoes turned out to be a crafty thing. Especially now that it had a fraction of my cunning. Still, I was good at dodging, and it eventually charged into a wall and got stuck there, halfway in and halfway out of the cathedral with the lamp. From there I gave it botched brain surgery and moved on.

I made sure the purple mist faded from its eyes before I did. The echoes returning to me wasn't something I could feel, so I was making damn sure I wasn't about to miss any I dropped.

That was the last big challenge I faced on that street. There were more yharnamites, oversized pigs, ferocious dogs, and bag men, but I'd already figured out methods of dealing with each of them. Still, there were questions raised by what I found there.

When I checked up on the little one, I approached from the direction of its worship and blocked its view, which made it react.

It pulled a strip of paper out of the ground and presented it to me with its tiny little arms. I accepted it, but this one didn't go away. Content to worship… the sky? I checked, the sky was overcast. No moon right now.

I turned my attention to the paper. I didn't recognise the handwriting.

_Behold! A Paleblood sky._

I lowered the paper and looked at the little one again. I looked to the sky and saw that nothing had changed. I looked back to the little one. Was he trying to communicate with me? I stepped to the side to see if he changed his direction of worship.

No. He was just worshipping the sky. There was nothing of interest in the spot he was looking. In the end I left him to it.

At one end of the street were a number of corpses that died worshipping a closed door. I had to assume they died worshipping the door when it was open, with something important on the other side. But it was barred, so I had no way of knowing for sure. What I saw through the bugs beyond was just more street, but that wasn't what made me pause. Each of the men who had perished in worship had their heads split open.

I could not divert my gaze soon enough to prevent myself from dwelling on what lay within, which further delayed my looking away when I realised there wasn't a brain in any of them. Instead, each skull held a white and slightly glowing shape. Each one was subtly different, but they were similar enough I grouped them as different examples of the same thing.

As an experiment, I had a single bug eat one. It took a while, and the bug perceived the object as tasteless. But it confirmed that whatever the potentially radioactive thing was, it was made up of something edible. I had a sneaking suspicion that it was some variation of pickled brain. Regardless, the cockroach finished eating it to no adverse effects. I didn't take that as incentive to eat the rest and left the rest there.

The only other things of note were a busted up elevator that didn't work and a weapon that I found on a corpse a bag man had been dragging around. The body was curiously out of the bag, but by the time I was able to inspect anything it was too late to figure out why. The weapon was a metal ball on a pole that had rubber for a grip.

There was a button that could be pressed, but when I did, nothing happened. It didn't make sense, so I gave it another look. There was a mechanism inside the weapon that was moving when I pressed the button. I could faintly hear it if I put my ear close. As an experiment, I pressed it and swung the weapon.

The hairs on my arm rose mid swing as the ball lit up with blue electricity. I nearly dropped it, but stopped when I realised I wasn't being electrocuted. Then, after a few seconds, the visible lightning stopped, leaving behind a faint smell like ozone.

It was a ball taser on a metal stick that was roughly the same length as my old baton. I liked tasers. I liked my old baton. I told the body I took it from 'thanks' and went to go try it on the next thing I could find that wanted to kill me. It turned out a ball on a stick with lightning running through it can be a very effective weapon. But in the end I returned to using the axe. I was just better with it at the moment.

Then, with nothing above ground to explore but dead ends, I started exploring down. One antechamber filled with two more bag men that gave me a challenge by coming at me together, as well as more murderous Yharnamites later, I found myself emerging above ground once more.

The place I emerged to was built into a steep mountainside. Looking up, I saw a tall stone wall and no landmarks I recognised. But across the field from where I was was a tall double door that lead back into civilisation and looked like it was barred from my side.

That took a moment to tick over in my head. Then I realised that with the way things were in Yharnam, it made sense for some places to have been quarantined. This would be one such place. Though, if they were quarantining this place, they'd done a terrible job. There was a huge corpse of a beast, decayed to the point that it was just bones, laying just in front of the doors.

I moved to step around it, but stopped the moment the bugs under my control felt the hot air of breath escaping the corpse's mouth. As I stopped, the beast reacted, like it realised it had been caught. It raised its head up ahead of the rest of its body, lifting itself in an almost snake like fashion until it was standing on all four legs with his head, which happened to be the size of my body, hanging just above mine.

As it took its time doing that, I was ordering bugs onto it to try… something. To eat whatever was left on it's bones at the very least.

The beast howled like a wolf, though the sound was different, and for the second time in a short time I watched something light up with blue electricity. The breezy strands of hair still somehow attached to the beast defied gravity to stand on end as the beast started crackling and jettisoning electricity off of it in every which direction.

And, of course, every single bug of mine that was on the beast died.


	20. 2 Designate 7

It was pretty clear I was outmatched. The instant my bugs died I stowed my axe as I let out an almost repressed sigh, then pulled out a strip of paper that Eileen had given me what felt like a really long time ago. I pressed it to my head and saw that symbol, the one that almost reminded me of a hanged man. The Hunter's mark. It pulled me under and I let my body fail to maintain itself as my mind drifted to '_sleep'_.

The beast's electrically charged claw came down on my instants after I was no longer physical enough to be affected by material blows. My eyes lasted longer than I thought they would, and I was treated to an up close view of its sunken face before I stumbled forward into the garden of the Hunter Dream. Its stench, unfortunately, lingered.

Ozone still filled my nose. I felt justified in kicking a nearby stone and yelling, "_Fuck!_"

Doll, who wasn't sitting too far from my outburst, jolted awake. She resumed her calm demeanor quickly, and rose to her feet far slower and more gracefully than I think I ever had. "Is something the matter, Taylor?"

I breathed. "_More beasts._" I explained, repressing the urge to kick another, less important stone.

"You do not enjoy hunting beasts?" Doll questioned.

I rounded on her. "_Don't you start too. I've got Gehrman and Teilgean on my case already. Everyone else is always crowing on about it too, and I can't even communicate to them so I can't exactly tell them to stop. Meanwhile I'm trying to find some goddamn answers, and what I get for it is a kidnapping and instructions to hunt a beast that has lightning shooting off of it. Which, by the way, doesn't even make scientific sense!_"

"It was only a question." Doll said calmly in the face of my outburst.

"_What do you think?_" I waved my hand as I turned away to look at the moon instead of giving a straight answer. I redirected my gaze elsewhere when I felt like it was telling me to hunt too, _somehow._

"I think you do not."

"_What gave it away?_"

"It is good you do not enjoy it." Doll told me. "The best hunters never find joy in bringing death to those that need it."

"_You almost had me calmed down,_" I said, "_Then you ruined it._"

"Only the best hunters make it to an old age." She continued. "This dream will not sustain you forever. Once you are done with it, as it will be done with you, your paths will diverge."

"_And where does that leave me?_" I asked sardonically. "_Do I get a grave in a good spot?_"

"No." Doll said both calmly and definitively. It was incredibly hard to make her get excited about anything. That was part of why I found myself calming down so quickly. I turned around curiously, asking a question without speaking.

"There will be a marker of your presence within this dream," Doll explained, "But you will persist, as all hunters before you have."

That explained Eileen then. Actually, that was a connection I should've made earlier. If she had a grave, but still existed in Yharnam, then clearly I would continue is some capacity once whatever it was I was doing was done. It was hardly a comforting thought.

"_So I do get a second chance…_" That was not the bag of cookies most people thought it to be. For me, at least. What I had done back on Bet was unforgivable. That I had made peace with it was irrelevant. The capes that remained would be on the lookout for me, and they wouldn't be happy if the knew I was alive.

Come to think of it, did they even know I was alive?

I thought of Lisa, Rachel, Bryan, Aisha. Theo. In all fairness, it was probably better if they didn't figure out my eventual fate. Whatever conclusions they had come to, it would be for the best if I just left them there. I cleared my throat and lifted my hand to the familiar position.

"Close your eyes," Doll told me in ritual. "Let the echoes become your strength."

I obeyed before her power could pull me into a false calm and made me need a reminder. "_There should be seven echoes of a similar nature. They'll be strong, unnaturally so, and they should have a talent for the arcane as well._"

"Ah," Doll murmured as I felt several somethings rushing through my veins. "I believe I have found them. They possess great strength indeed, as well as the talent for arcane you described. Although, the talent they possess is not nearly as impressive as the strength in their bodies."

"_I have enough strength._" I told her. "_I want their talents._"

And just like that, I became another Victor. One that took a blood price instead of leaving his victims talentless but alive.

"You have a great many more echoes at this time." Doll told me before using her power. "Where would you prefer they be directed?"

"_The ones that are best used for my constitution should go there._" I said darkly, recalling a fuzzy scene I couldn't quite remember where I literally got conked over the head. "_Actually, put all the rest there too. I don't want another headache like the one I just got._"

"Of course." Doll allowed her power to run its course and once again Visions flew past my eyes. Like before, I watched them, only this time I made an effort to observe all of them at once. Well, seven in particular.

The bag men had started out as simple Yharnamites. Family men and labourers. Each of them had a distinct memory of being taken in a similar way to how I had been taken, and then there were flashes that were all too familiar to me. Having their bodies cut open and operated on. There were a lot of those. There were almost as many where I saw important looking figures reading from a book, though the words they said were faded.

About those figures, I noticed something interesting. The garb they wore was almost identical to that of the woman I found in the basement, which was similar to what I remembered Gascoigne wearing. It not only confirmed my suspicion that the Healing Church was responsible, but it gave me reason to hate it. After all, now I had memories of being mutilated and tortured by them.

I let out a breath. "_Thank you Doll._"

"Of course, Taylor." Doll rose, her eyes lingering on my arm.

I eyed it, then shoved Maria's bone in there. If it lasted longer than before, then I was heading down the right track. "_Tell me. Did the other hunters relive the echoes when you did this with them?_"

Doll tilted her head. "They did not say."

"_Hm._" I'd ask Eileen if I saw her again. I looked at the workshop. "_I think it's time I started taking care of my weapons._"

My collection of bloodstones had only grown since I picked up my first few and I had since started leaving them sitting in a chest in the dream. I still didn't know how they worked, but I was not looking forward to facing down that lighting beast without securing every available advantage. Doll didn't have the knowledge to be helpful, but there were books, and if push came to shove I was certain Gherman would be more than eager to help me get it right.

That turned out to be exactly what happened. After spending an hour getting frustrated and wasting three rocks, I shut the book and got the old man to help. He suggested I split the bloodstone enhancements between two weapons, seeing as bloodstones of a certain size only allowed a certain amount of improvement before requiring coagulated blood of a larger size.

That's how I interpreted it anyway. It was quite simple once you realised all the little anecdotes Gherman put in were irrelevant. Once I filtered everything out, I had a new appreciation for how serrated weapons more easily bit into the bones of beasts, and how bolt would be more effective against unbeastly foes that weren't human. It was strangely specific of him to say that, but the advice regarding a diversified arsenal was sound, so I made my picks.

My axe and the taser ball. Maybe I should've enhanced the saw cleaver for the fight against the lightning beast, but I felt more of a connection to the other two. The mystic arm I had been blessed with shattered about halfway through the procedure. That proved there was truth in Teilgean's words, though I worried that using the echoes of my current prey would make an otherwise standard if misty arm also light up in electricity.

Only one way to know.

After that it was back to the lightning beast that defied physics. All too soon I was watching it rise from a sleeping position once more. It slowly and dramatically took its time getting up and subsequently lighting itself up, and while it did that I walked closer to I could get into a good position to hack at it. This time I kept my bugs off of it for the most part, and instead of climbing all over it, had them try messing up its footing. Results were minimal, to say the least.

That is, until I used my axe to forcefully trip it by straight up removing half a limb. I had half a second to duck out from underneath the beast as it fell, which I nearly wasted appreciating how effectively my axe was cutting now. There must have been something insulating it on the bottom of its feet, because the moment it hit the ground all the lightning that was shooting off of it dissipated.

It wasn't the only vector through the lightning travelled. My axe was made of metal and metal tended to be conductive. Thankfully, it had a non-metal grip, so I came away largely unhindered from striking the charged creature. The worst I had to deal with was a warm handle and a smell of burning that was eclipsed by pure ozone.

As much as I tried to destroy its head while I had the chance, the lightning beast was hardier that I was able to destroy. It was back on its feet before long, then it was swinging down at me with the limb I cut off and I dodged in to give it another strike of my own. Since it didn't seem to be lighting itself up again, I had my bugs climb on it, but kept the majority of them in the back.

Most of these beasts seemed to be the result of uncontrolled growth. That just resulted in them having overextended reach. It wasn't true for all of them, but it was a general rule of thumb that being close to a beast was actually safer than being at arms length, so long as you were actively dodging or trying to kill it.

That wasn't true for all of them. As with all rules, there were exceptions. Not that I was saying this lightning beast was an exception. It did manage to get a few lucky hits every now and then. As seemed to be the theme with my larger prey, each of those hits sent me flying. After each one I had to heal up, even despite the fact that I'd hardened my body up between fighting the _cleric beast_ and this thing.

That being said, I wasn't feeling nearly as much tension fighting this thing as I did the beast of the bridge. I had a weapon I was more comfortable with, I had more strength and more speed, and I had significantly more blood vials available this far into the fight compared to when I fought the other oversized beast.

It was nearly over when the beast lit up with lightning again and swung at me with it's shortened limb. Only it wasn't shortened anymore and I didn't dodge back enough. I narrowed my eyes at the healed claw that now had my blood on it, then got pissed off as the beast howled and lit itself up once more.

I jabbed the blood vial into my leg and ignored my mad giggling as I crouched low and darted back in. It bit at me with its sunken jaw, but that was much easier to dodge than a limb that I thought was missing. In moments, I was back at its leg and preparing to swing.

My bugs warned me retribution was on its way and I dodged away, only I went in the wrong direction. It was a failure of exhaustion. My bugs afforded me a perspective of the battlefield that was difficult to put to words, but it let me know which direction the strike was coming from, and I dodged into towards it instead of away. I didn't close my eyes and watched the blow that would put me on death's door once more approach and… pass.

I blinked. That should have hit me.

There was no time to ponder on why I was fine or the implications, as the beast was coming back for more. There were precious moments where I was in the perfect position to strike as the oversized thing repositioned to hit me. I didn't let it, and the beast had three and a half limbed once more.

It hit the ground. I beheaded it, then waited. That seemed to be enough.

My thoughts troubled me as the beast started dissolving into two specks of silver light. That strike that should've hit me, frankly, but it didn't. It didn't feel like a power. There was no flashy effect of sound or light, and it didn't feel like I tapped into anything. I just moved and the attack failed to connect. If there was something supernatural going on, it was so subtle that it almost wasn't noticeable to the user, and was as easy to do as clenching one's fist.

If it was momentarily phasing out of existence like I thought it was, then that was useful. The only question was why?

I lit the lamp as I thought on that and then picked up the other object, a blue crystal suspended in a metal ring meant to hang from a necklace. I paused, looking at it, then let myself think out loud.

"_How did I dodge __**Darkbeast Paarl?**_"

Disturbing. That was knowledge I had no way of knowing, yet there it was. I had discussed this beast with precisely two people, neither of which had mentioned its name. Either defeating the beast and having its echoes flowing through my veins was enough for that knowledge to be imparted, or it was my handling of this crystal that did that.

The only thing was, that sounded suspiciously like telepathy. The only thing I knew of that imparted influence on the minds of others with that level of subtlety was the Simurgh, though there were words to be said about that thing's interpretation of subtlety. Nebulous, for one.

What was bothering me in the moment was that the knowledge could be traced. I killed the thing, then I learned its name. The new power on the other hand… where did it come from? When did it appear? Why was I getting new powers without triggering?

All that and more coursed through my head, but they were just more questions, and this time I didn't even have the virtue of having some answers. Only questions. I set that all aside for now and went to make myself an arm.

~drip~dripdrip~drip~

o** ****u***a***n *s ****ci**t

The echoes flew past and I barely understood them. What little I was able to glean, however, was that Paarl had been studied. There were multiple memories of a figure dressed in hunter garb I wasn't familiar with fighting the beast, but not to the death for whatever reason. My perspective fought the hunter in ways I never could, and more than once I saw the crystal I picked up hanging from his belt like a trophy.

In the memory, it sparked. The hunter wrote in a book instead of wielding a weapon. The sight gave me an idea.

I had no idea if it would work, but I shoved two things into the manifesting limb this time. Maria's bone, and the blue crystal. As it had done multiple times already, the lines of my skin fractured to let the foriegn objects in, but took them with earnest once the mist surrounded the items. Unlike what it had done before, the mist crackled briefly with electricity.

The sparks ran along the length of the limb and hastened the hardening of the mist inside. Just like that, I had my right arm again. But I didn't know if it was still fragile. So to test it, I hit it with all the strength of my left.

"_Argh!_" I immediately started cradling the arm. That stung like a bitch.

Doll, who was watching in curiosity, covered her mouth with a masterfully carved hand to hide her tittering. But covering the mouth did nothing to stop the sounds coming from within. I shot her an indignant look as I got used to feeling complete again.

It was strange. The arm wasn't my old one and I could tell. I had no way to compare it to others that had prosthetic arms, seeing as I hadn't had the time to get one back on Bet, but what I was feeling at the moment almost made me think I had five limbs. As I had just reaffirmed, the projected arm had feeling, but that didn't stop the ache that came from having lost a limb.

I couldn't get over the disparity of having an arm at the same time as not having one, though I wasn't complaining. This was much better than the alternative. I got over the pain and started flexing the arm, testing its range of movement. Overall, it was good. My old arm had been lost long enough ago that I couldn't one hundred percent recall how it felt compared to this one, but it was coming to me as easily as using the one I had left.

"Congratulations, _Taylor._" Doll told me once she got over herself. "It pained me to see you struggling. I'm honoured to have been able to help you as I have."

"_The struggle is far from over._" I said, "_But thanks._" It was a short and awkward way to thank someone that had just restored a limb to me, but in all honesty I was somewhat glad that Doll hadn't gone for the low hanging fruit like Teilgean would have. I was worried that would change if I said anything on the matter, so I kept my mouth shut.


	21. 2 Designate 8

I was disrespecting the term 'quarantine' when I opened the barred door the _darkbeast_ was lying by. I did not deign to call it's tenure there guarding, seeing as it was the very thing the barred door was intended to prevent. Regardless, in the past when a quarantine went up, I forced myself to respect it. Doing the same here was pointless.

There was no difference to the air on either side of the door. My bugs had much better senses of smell than I did, and all they could determine was a difference in dankness, which made sense since my side was open to the elements. Regardless, that wasn't why I was disrespecting something I normally abided by.

It was because the attempt to contain the plague of beasts had failed. It was a Nilbog situation, only with a Nilbog that aspired to more than having his own town. I was by definition a hunter, so I had every right to open the door and get access to more beasts to kill. I had a sneaking suspicion that if Gherman could look down upon me, he would be smiling. But he couldn't see the real world from a dream, so that was impossible.

The majority of beasts in the area I opened up were as far along in their transformation as it could go, at least as far as I could tell. Each was as strong, if not stronger than the first beast I encountered in Yharnam, but these encounters did not go the same way as the first. The beasts that weren't that far along still stood on two legs, but that was the most of the humanity that was left in them.

Traveling through this part of Yharnam, I found I was much more resilient to bodily harm. It wasn't like my body suddenly became a rock, completely deflecting all claws and fangs coming my way. That would've been stupid. I wasn't Weld, nor did I want to be. In fact, at first sneeze it didn't seem like I was more resilient at all. Every cut stung, and every slash opened flesh. Where the effects of Doll's powers showed was in what happened immediately after.

There was a time where a beast bit down on my left elbow, the hand of which was now relegated to holding the gun and throwing things. The daggers it called teeth snapped shut, completely tearing a chunk of me away, but when it dragged its fangs away I still had all the flesh, albeit torn to absolute ribbons. In a less extreme example, a slash on my torso going from waist to hip that went down to bone did exactly that, but immediate investigation saw no bone exposed to air.

My body now had an automatic healing response to trauma. Not to the extent that any wounds vanished, but enough to keep me kicking for longer. Something I was all too eager to do. I had the suspicion that this effect was why some of the things I fought tended not to die when I buried an axe a lethal distance into their chests. How Iosefka had the effect or something like it while I received mine through Doll's power was a question that had dangerous implications.

As for my new arm, it still… crackled every now and then. Not nearly enough to incapacitate anything, but enough to make a beast pause for about a tenth of a second if I got lucky. Considering my luck, it wasn't something I wanted to rely on. So I didn't. I had something much better that an unreliable static charge if I wanted to taze something.

Gehrman called it a Tonitris, and he had gone all nostalgic about it when he was helping me refine it with bloodstone shards. He got all glassy eyes as he talked about _Archibald_, a name I recognised after the fact, and how he dedicated himself to harnessing the powers of bolt. The memories I had allowed me to connect the dots.

The blue sparks were the bolt, and they weren't electricity, not really. Nor were they plasma. More likely the darkbeasts naturally shed some kind of gas that made transmitting electric charge incredibly easy, or emitted two kinds of gasses that combined to generate enough energy to make the resulting compound easily break down into plasma.

I stopped thinking about that there. I wasn't _that_ knowledgeable on matters of powers generating electricity, I just knew I hated it because people used it to kill my bugs. The point was, I was much more partial to simply calling it a ball taser, but the name Gherman used did roll off the tongue.

The other point was that in the situation where my arm got bit and I again when my waist was opened, the responsible beast was subsequently smashed in the head with a heavy ball brimming with electric charge. The physical impact was great for putting some distance between them and me, and the electric charge made them slower to recover.

Putting the beasts off balance like that made it easier for me to kill them, and I took full advantage of that. It wasn't that I started disregarding the beasts or fighting recklessly, being ripped up still hurt, but I eventually started slipping into a fugue. Not actively bloodthirsty like I found myself when I was fighting Gascoigne, but clinical. There were enough beasts in this new place that I could look up any street and see one or two of the overgrown things, if not obvious evidence of their presence. I killed them all.

There were one or two that I saw curled up on an upper floor balcony, waiting for someone to walk underneath them. Not that there was anyone normal left living in this place. Regardless, the second of these fugues ended when I paused and looked up at something on a rooftop. All around me were dead beasts that I hadn't killed, so I was more wary than usual. That's why I noticed the shape up there. I traced a path up with my eyes and climbed to the top.

The view my elevation gave me was breathtaking. There were fires close to the horizon, casting an orange glow on the otherwise dark sky. It illuminated the buildings far off, revealing the state of disrepair that this portion of Yharnam had fallen to. It wasn't dark enough that the spots away from the fire weren't visible, but there was a marked difference.

I was not the only one watching the city, there was a man in an ashen grey hunter's garb sitting on the ledge looking away from me. Behind him was a blunderbuss and some kind of tinkertech box that had a stake sticking out of one end, both discarded almost carelessly. Beside him was a minigun, which was something I honestly wasn't expecting to find here, and is why I investigated.

After taking the scene in and using my bugs to get a more accurate impression on the older man, I took a step forward. I wasn't trying to be quiet, but I also wasn't trying to attract attention. The level of effort I put in was enough to fool most beasts, and was how I was used to moving about when I was travelling in these dangerous parts.

"How did you get up here?" The hunter asked suddenly. His voice rang out, reaching my ears with volume and intent. He was speaking at me without even looking at me. I considered how I wanted to respond as he slumped a fraction of an inch. "Ah, it's no matter. This place is finished."

So he was sane, I could work with that. I walked next to him, allowing myself to stand on the ledge. In my previous life I wouldn't have done that, seeing as he was in a prime position to throw me to my death, but now that I had the power to come back from the dead, I was using my positioning as more of a test.

Not that I was expecting to die in this scenario. This man sounded defeated.

"Look at it." He gestured forwards with one hand. "And to think I made this place to be a sanctuary."

He was gesturing at the beast that had brought the end to my first fugue in which I travelled through this place. The flayed beast. Long story short, it had killed me and was now on a rampage.

I had been dealing with it just fine until it sprayed poison everywhere and killed all my bugs at the same time. Then it had poisoned me, which started a mad scramble to get away and heal myself while the flayed beast did its best to unheal me. In the end it had won that contest. When I reawoke and went to find revenge it was gone, though there was a trail of half eaten beasts to follow.

The trail had lead me here.

"_Sorry._" I said.

The man looked at me. There were grey bandages over his eyes, but I didn't get the feeling that he couldn't see. "Are you the one that released it?"

I shook my head. There hadn't been anything restraining it in the first place. The church where I found it didn't even have any doors. Frankly, I was surprised it had stayed in there for as long as it did.

"Hm." He clasped his hands together and rested his chin on his knuckles. "Call me Djura. I don't think I'm to stay here for much longer, so we may meet again."

"_Taylor._" I told him.

"What was that?"

I sighed and pulled out a piece of paper I had used to communicate with little Taylor. I folded it so that the two words I intended for him were front and centre. _I'm Taylor._

Djura inspected the parchment, then handed it back. "Trouble speaking, then? You're not the only one I've met like that. Though that's normally thanks to the plague warping the shapes of their jaws, or…" He let out a dry chuckle. "They're so broken that even blood can't fix them."

I arched an eyebrow.

"I'm still talking about the jaw." Djura clarified. "Landing a good blow there is useful because it sends them off balance, no matter the size. More than once I had to stop an uppity hunter striking things larger than him like that."

He went back to watching the city. Eventually he let out a sigh. "I miss hammers."

"_Question._" I said, taking a seat next to Djura. I was pulling out my ink and quill when he just started talking.

"This is Old Yharnam." He glanced at me, seeing the new question in my eyes. "You're an outsider. You won't know the history of this place, and even if you did, it would be the history from above. They would have lied. What I built of this place has fallen and I'm much older than I was. People my age wear down the ears of their youngers with long winded stories of old, and I haven't done that yet. If you hadn't shown up I don't think I'd have had the chance, so you're the one I'm talking at."

I still got my ink out, so I could voice any interruptions I deemed necessary.

Djura looked down forlornly. I followed his gaze and saw a human corpse, the first one I'd seen in a while, ripped apart on a nearby rooftop. A bloody hunter's weapon nearby.

"There was a different plague in Yharnam, many years ago." Djura spoke. "It was called _Ashen Blood_. I was around when it was most threatening and what I saw has stayed with me ever since. The plague was sneaky, which let it become widespread. It dried up the blood of the sick and made that which flows through the body white instead of red. Solid instead of like water. More often than not, a sick man would appear healthy, until he bled. After bleeding, the skin would never heal right, if it healed at all.

"I saw houses lit on fire in an attempt to halt the plague. Children would bath themselves in mud because it would recolour the white ash that marked them as sick. If they were known to be ill, they were killed. There was no other option in the squalor of this town. For you see, there was an antidote for the Ashen Blood, but it wasn't cheap."

Djura pointed up at what I recognised as Cathedral Ward. "That area has changed since that time, but the truth remains that up there is where the rich live, while here is where the poor remained. The antidote was in good supply up there, and was distributed well, but down here was another story. There ended up being twice as much medicine down here than up there because the plague was simply more widespread here, only it wasn't distributed when people couldn't afford it. It ended up not being enough. Especially when the price went up. The streets were hauntingly quiet for a time."

He paused. "And then came the blood. That sweet, cheap, and intoxicating ichor that fixed everything."

Djura paused again. I kind of expected what came next.

"It didn't, I think." He sighed. "The Ashen Blood was eradicated, but the next plague reared its head far too soon. Leaving enough time of bliss for some to accept that the troubles were over, for people to flock to Yharnam and fill the empty houses, to grant hope for a good future, then taking it away for all to despair." Djura gestured around old Yharnam. "This place fell to despair first. It's where the first beasts were found."

So this place used the blood heavily, and was the first place to produce beasts. I was too jaded to believe in coincidences, meaning that there was a connection between the two. A hand brushed involuntarily against my belt of blood vials. If the blood was really the cause of the transformation, then would I start changing like that? Djura was old, and while I didn't know how much he used blood, I was skeptical of him abstaining for the entire time he'd been here.

"The first hunts ended badly." Djura continued heavily. "No survivors, more often than not. Whole parts of the city would disappear overnight, and then there would be more beasts. Then eventually came the workshop."

I was put in the mind of the old building Teilgean had pointed me towards. I scribbled a question onto a mostly blank piece of parchment. _Do you know Gherman?_

Djura was about to keep talking, having taken a moment to get nostalgic for things I wasn't there for. But his train of thought was derailed when I pushed that question in front of him. His expression showed the briefest surprise before taking a darker turn.

"You dream." He said.

I nodded cautiously.

His head shifted as he took me in, no doubt looking at me with fresh eyes. Dangerous eyes. The tension on the rooftop tripled in an instant. And then it was gone.

"I dreamed as well, once." He admitted, turning his head back to where the sounds of commotion was. Where the flayed beast was. "You have my pity."

"_I don't want your pity._" I told him, knowing he'd only hear gibberish. I tapped the name again to get him to divulge what he knew of the old man.

Djura pulled out a small dusty vial that was messy enough for me to be incapable of seeing what was inside. My bugs smelled gunpowder, however. "The first hunter, they call him. He was aged when the first beasts appeared. He was the one who lead the hunts that had survivors at all. Two in ten men came back from those. He established the workshop the Powder Kegs found inspiration in."

He considered the vial, then handed it to me. "Take it. I have no more use for it."

I accepted the gift and gave it a closer look. It was, in fact, gunpowder.

"Now where was I?" Djura sat up a little straighter as he overlooked old Yharnam. "Ah yes, the workshop. And with the workshop came the hunters. With the hunters came the death of the masses." He gestured down. "You think this place is crowded now? When word of the Healing Church and its blood spread, all sorts came flocking to Yharnam. I've already told you that the outsiders were the first to fall to the plague. They changed here."

That would explain the quarantine from outside, then.

"I blooded myself alongside the first hunters. They shouldn't have taken me, I was young at the time. But my hands ran red with blood and I was one with the rest of them. For too long I hunted, losing my head amidst the haze. But one of my companions opened my eyes." He paused, his eyes haunted underneath his hat. "He went insane on the blood, and not the healing kind. He embraced his beastly side. That's when I realised something."

Djura pointed at the half dozen corpses in the courtyard below us. "All those creatures down there. They look like beasts, but they're not. They are people."

I arched an eyebrow.

"You're sceptical. You just haven't had enough experience to see. You will." He said, sure of it. Treating it as fact. "One day."

I wrote my rebuttal. _My brother became a beast and tried to kill me._ Not entirely accurate, but it got the point across.

"Hrmm…" Djura took his time reading the sentence. Or he read it right away and was thinking without moving. "Then you see it from my side already. I've pointlessly talked your ear off."

I shook my head and took the paper back to write another message. _He did it because they killed me. Branded OUTSIDER on my body. He was mad with grief, and putting him down was a mercy. All the people that are still people have stayed inside, and I haven't seen anyone recover from the master effect._

There was more I wanted to put in there, but any more would've made it too wordy.

"You're brother was still in there, I'm sure." Djura told me. "You were the one to kill him, weren't you?" I inclined my head. "Then you have my empathy, little as it is worth, these days."

I didn't write more to continue the argument. Djura's position on the humanity of the beasts did little to impact what I wanted. I didn't agree with him, but there was no point in further debate.

Djura looked to where the flayed beast was howling. "You came up from the Goal, didn't you?"

I wasn't sure if that was where the bag men had deposited me, but I nodded anyway.

"That means you killed the Darkbeast." Djura muttered to himself. He stood and started gathering his weapons. He strapped the stake box onto his arm and experimentally pulled a trigger I hadn't seen, making the stake jump out a short distance, then retract. He picked up his blunderbuss and holstered it, then stepped over to the minigun.

"Hunter, I have one thing I want to ask of you before I leave this place."

I stood off to the side and waited.

"I've dedicated years to protecting the people here, and now most of them are dead. The beasts I protected kept to themselves, they were of no danger to those above. But that thing..." He pointed between two buildings, where a swollen beast was eating another. Purple mist drifted erratically from his fast moving head. The haze of its poison was just barely visible. Now that it had my approach to fighting, I guess it didn't see a point in holding the poison back. At this distance it looked to be about the size of Djura's pointing hand. "That thing would eat the world and still be hungry."

Djura pulled a lever and the minigun swiveled. He breathed out, then started pulling on the contraption, operating it using mechanisms that were difficult to figure out at first glance. A hail of bullets crossed the city and impacted the flayed beast, sending it flying off the beast it was in the process of eating.

Said beast tried to stand up and took a few bullets for its attacker, but Djura was already correcting his aim towards the flayed beast once more. A stray bullet hit something explosive, which set off a chain reaction in what was probably a warehouse for gunpowder. Djura kept firing into the burning building, even as the flames died against the mostly stone architecture. When the fire cleared and the bullets ceased, the beast was nowhere to be seen.

A howl that echoed across the city told us it was still alive.

Djura stepped away from the minigun and considered his blunderbuss, then dropped it next to the bigger gun. He crouched next to a different ledge and lifted a tile. Using one hand he pulled a goddamn cannon out from underneath and hefted it with ease, then he looked me in the eye. "Help me kill that thing."


End file.
